


It's a Living, It's a Calling, It's a Paycheck

by FriendshipCastle



Series: Spookums Radio Anthology [2]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alcohol, Canon Asexual Character, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Worms (The Magnus Archives), Gen, Gore, Gun Violence, Intoxication, Karaoke, Martin's mom mentioned, Martin's mom's death, Painkillers, Pre-Canon, Smoking, T for swears and canon-typical statement shenanigans, The Magnus Institute Workplace Fic, as canon-compliant as I can make it with a timeline and two full listens of the show, body horror aka The Flesh, previous sexual harassment in the workplace, previous workplace harassment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:14:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 23
Words: 39,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25103776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FriendshipCastle/pseuds/FriendshipCastle
Summary: Jon is hired in the research division of the Magnus Institute in 2011 and it's better than his last job... at least to start. He works hard and reluctantly gets to know his coworkers and strange stuff happens to other people. For a while.A workplace fic that justifies (to me) how long Jon worked in the Institute before he realized how messed up everything was and before he really screwed up his coworker relationships. Starts pre-canon, includes a bunch of OCs to populate this workplace with.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist unrequited and low-key pining
Series: Spookums Radio Anthology [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1772725
Comments: 18
Kudos: 96





	1. June 2011

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon loses one job and gains a new one that's really gonna challenge him.

Jon had been hired fresh off a museum research job where his coworkers had been… less than kind. Jon himself was often less than kind, but at least he didn’t make frequent off-color jokes about the new curator’s skirt length. Or share inappropriate photos or videos with unwilling coworkers. Such boundaries hadn’t been a point of pride until his last job, but now it was all he could cling to when he realized he was being a prick. At least he wasn’t as bad as Christopher and Aaron and their awful ‘boys’ club.’

Georgie had been begging him to quit the museum gig for over a year. She would have been proud of him when he finally did, but by then, they weren’t really on those sorts of terms. It wasn’t the breakup that did it, but it certainly hadn’t helped. Jon had a temper, which he was controlling via frequent cigarette breaks and, once, a very emotionally fraught ride on a carousel. He was keeping it together. 

Then Chester made a comment about Jon needing to get laid so he wouldn’t be such a bitch when his coworkers misfiled museum manifests. Jon had looked up from his sticky keyboard and erratic mouse, feeling the burn in his eyes from too many sleepless nights because he’d grown used to having The Admiral cuddle against his chest while Georgie snored softly against his back, and Jon had fucking snapped. He’d gone for Chester, not with fists—he wasn’t large, and he was chain smoking too much and he knew it—but with every stupid secret he’d been forced to learn about the man over the two awful years they’d worked together.

He had his meager possessions in a box within an hour and an interview at the Magnus Institute within a week in their Research division. Jon had seen the adverts on bus stations and on the Tube—“Have a story everyone’s afraid to hear? We’re here to listen.” He’d heard about what kinds of tales they were interested in. It felt like a nasty little secret in his heart was going to be loud and proud on his business card— _I’m Jon Sims and I research the paranormal_. Even so, they had ‘institute’ as part of their name, and Jon had a long history with research even if he didn’t have a formal Library Science degree. He’d sent in his CV and got a call the next day from a harried-sounding woman who had to keep stopping the screening process to yell at someone named Martin about the proper checkout procedure for in-house reference texts. Jon had his concerns about the organization’s legitimacy, but the starting pay was better than minimum wage, and they were well-established as a research institute since 1818.

He had an interview with a preternaturally calm receptionist named Meaghan, then a much more pointed and formal interview with the Head of the Institute, who smiled like he practiced in front of a mirror. Jon honestly couldn’t tell if Elias Bouchard had liked him or not, but then he had an offer letter and a start date within three weeks of quitting his last job. 

Jon’s head was still spinning as he shook Head Researcher Jason Onoh’s hand and was shown to his desk, which was small and situated among ten other, similarly-sized desks but, mercifully, had no pornography tacked to it. That had been the normal decor at his last position, no matter how many anonymous memos he sent to HR. This desk, though, was just a regular desk in a hopefully non-toxic workplace. Jon’s coworker and direct supervisor, Katie Massey, gave him a cheery wave from her nearby desk, which sported several colorful LGBT flags in her pen cup. Jon dared to take a small breath of relief.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're finding this for the first time, please enjoy! I was aiming to write about fun or strange Magnus Institute coworker interactions that let me consider how this place operates. 
> 
> If you've seen previous iterations, there's a reason I have edited this guy so much! 
> 
> First, I listened to the 2019 live episode that came out 7/23/20 and immediately began editing this to make it (somewhat) canon-compliant again. That would have meant cutting a few Martin and Jon interaction chapters, though, and I didn't want to take those away, I am weak. Instead, I leaned into the fact that Jon definitely doesn't know most of the people that work at the Institute and I have him forgetting coworkers he doesn't interact with on a regular basis. This means he's going to forget Martin a couple times.
> 
> Then, as of 9/15/20, I saw a post on tumblr by dathan about some harmful TMA fanon tropes that caused me to reflect on how I had been portraying some workplace character interactions. There were some spots in this story that got into coworker bullying territory, which I definitely didn't mean to have as part of this fic (the whole idea with season 1 Jon having really strong coworker boundaries in this story is rooted in previous workplace harassment). There's still gonna be coworker awkwardness, but I was leaning into jokes where Tim would make coworkers uncomfortable with flirting and, in retrospect, it doesn't fit with what I want this story to be or the way I'd like to portray Tim. I did rewrites of Chapters 2-13 to bring more professionalism and respect into coworker relationships. I don't have a beta for this fic, but I'm going to do my best going forward with ensuring that my portrayal of the relationships in this story is more nuanced. 
> 
> ...I hope not a lot of people saw the original version, but such is AO3. I now have 3 documents in Scrivener titled 'Workplace fic,' 'Workplace fic revised post-liveshow' and 'Workplace fic revised to be less shitty to Tim, he deserves better.' This is the most I have ever edited any fanfic. I really enjoy this world, it's super fun to write in, and these characters are COMPLICATED and I love thinking about them. I'm doing my best to do my headcanons about the Institute staff justice.


	2. September 2011

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Let's meet a ton of OCs in Artifact Storage!

Jon spent a pleasant few months learning his way around the library system and general research channels that the Magnus Institute followed. The Head of the Library, Diana Due, complained often that the whole institute just needed to switch over to the MARC system, but Jon didn’t mind navigating the closed stacks. Katie started sending him on more library research missions after she realized his phone voice was… less than kind. Jon kept his texts to Georgie down to once a week and absolutely did not address any topic of her new podcast. It needed some cleaning up in terms of citations, but the research tactics were quite sound. Of course they were; it was Georgie. She was a genius at seeking out sources and convincing them to talk to her.

Jon worked very hard not to use her podcasts to help him fall asleep. He had done it for a while early on after the breakup and it was just too depressing to begin slipping into sleep and then remember Georgie and The Admiral were out of his life now. She had sent him a text full of exclamation points and emojis when he told her he’d started a new job. She insisted on getting together for a celebratory drink, but he managed to resist her kindness. He told her he was busy. After the fourth time he said it, she stopped asking him to get a drink with her. Georgie was very persistent, and he could believe her happiness for him was genuine, but he really didn’t want to navigate friendship waters yet, especially after she’d pushed him to quit his horrible job at the museum for so long.

After months with his head down in the books and files of the Library, and quite a few debunked rumors or stories, Jason asked him to check out Artifact Storage with help from the Institute’s resident drifter. 

“They’re the group we work with the most, I’d say,” Jason told him. “We should be more integrated with the Archive, but… Anyway, I’d like you to see how they catalogue. At some point, I’d like to get all of our various catalogues on one database so we can cross-reference what’s available without having to run down there to check what they have. That’s probably a fair ways out, though. I asked Martin to show you the place. He’s at a loose end.”

“Sorry, who?”

Jason waved a hand towards the open door of his cozy office. “He’s in the floating pool, helps out here and there. Elias hired him for the Library but, well. He tries. I know HR’s used him for filing before. Makes a good cuppa.”

“Right. Well, I’ll take a look, then. See if I can get a sense of how to integrate our information.”

Jason gave him a pleased smile. “Thanks, Jon.”

When Jon came out of Jason’s office, he saw a large, bespectacled young man was shifting from foot to foot. He gave his name as Martin Blackwood and delivered a damp and fleeting handshake before quickly stumbling to the nearest lift and pressing the ‘down’ button.

“Thank you for showing me to Artifact Storage,” Jon said. “Who’s in charge of the department?” 

“Ah, that’s Sonja. There’s also Gilpin, Vihaan, and I think they hired Sasha full-time last week? She was probationary for a little bit but then Lee transferred so. Um. Sonja’s the one in charge, though. The rest just help with arranging transport and maintenance and cataloging whenever the Head Archivist requests a pickup. And testing.” 

The doors dinged. Jon glanced up at Martin as the lift descended. “And who’s the Head Archivist?”

“Oh, no one’s told you…? Gertrude Robinson. She’s been here well over forty years, they say she’ll outlast Elias.” Martin giggled, high and nervous. “You probably won’t see her. She goes off to track down, um, Institute stuff. She brings back objects sometimes? Stories, too. I mean, statements. Th-that’s her main job. Taking statements.” He stuttered himself to silence while Jon watched, unimpressed with his performance. Martin turned deliberately as the lift doors swung open before them. “This is where objects go. Artifacts, I guess, since it’s Artifact Storage” He led the way down a flickering hallway as he continued this much-belated tour of the Magnus Institute. 

This was the most of the building that Jon had ever seen. Perhaps he should have requested a tour during the hiring process, but it hadn’t seemed as important as settling in to his work and shaking off all the bad memories of his past coworkers. The Institute was larger than he had expected. Deeper, too—Jon hadn’t known there was a basement. Martin wasn’t a great tour guide, but it at least this walk had showed spots that were worth exploring later.

Martin was saying, “You know the Library, and then there’s the Archive. That’s in the basement. Artifact Storage and the Archive work pretty closely. The Institute mostly gets statements from people who have had a paranormal experience, or, or, just a weird experience. I hear Rosie with the recording equipment sometimes, interviewing people who come to make their statement in person. I thought there’d be more ghosts, honestly, but it’s… bugs. And weird fires. And disappearing friends or memories or objects. It’s kind of hard to explain. Have you ever given a statement here?”

“No,” Jon said. 

“Right. Sorry. So, ah, Gertrude asks the Research department to look into weird phenomenons for her sometimes, but she usually just tears through the Library herself.”

“Phenomena.”

“What?”

“Phenomena is the plural of phenomenon. Not ‘phenomenons.’”

“Oh. Okay?” Martin stopped in front of a large welded gate but didn’t open it. “Um, so, how Artifact Storage works is, we get donations of something paranormal from people, or Gertrude goes off to follow up on statements and she sends objects that have done something strange. That’s where Artifact Storage comes in.” 

“So she is away gathering first-hand accounts on strange occurrences, and shipping back things that people have said are… cursed?”

“Ah, yes,” Martin said. “In a nutshell, yes. Not always cursed, but Sonja or Vihaan might be able to tell you more about the artifacts they store. Sorry, are you going to be working with Storage?”

“No more or less than the usual researcher, I’d imagine,” Jon said. “And you? What do you do for the Institute?”

“What? Oh, I’m, uh.” Martin adjusted his glasses nervously. “I was hired for the Library and I sort of help around the Institute as needed. Get some use out of my parapsychology degree. Um. So. Have you worked in an archive like this before?”

“Yes,” Jon lied firmly. He had been feeling comfortable in his role, but now that he knew there were whole new layers of the Institute, he was starting to feel a bit in over his head. That was to be expected with a brand new job, but it would be best to start establishing his authority.

“Great,” Martin said quietly. He sounded defeated for some reason. “Here’s Storage, then.”

The welded metal gate opened with barely a squeak, and the small chamber within held a heavy wooden door with a window. It looked like the person inside would pop out and take Jon’s fish and chip order, if a person had been in the window. There was no handle on the outside of the door, though.

“Hello?” Martin called.

“Martin! What now?” sighed a sturdy-looking older man, popping his head around the edge of the window. He looked like an aging biker, with tattoos running up his arms and into the sleeves of his stained black T-shirt. A jagged scar pulled part of one lip down before the puckered tissue vanished into his greying beard.

Martin adjusted his glasses. “H-hello, Vihaan. This is Jon Sims, he’s a new researcher—”

“Yes,” Jon interrupted. “Martin is showing me the building, but I was also curious about your cataloging process.”

The man raised a pierced eyebrow at Jon. “Our process?”

A younger woman with massive, stylish glasses and her hair in a long braid down her back passed behind Vihaan, peering around the cluttered office. “Where’s the label gun?”

“I have it!” called someone more distant.

“You’re filing,” the woman laughed. “Take it off your belt and put it _back_.”

“Come _get_ it, if you want it so bad!”

Vihaan was grinning when Jon turned his horrified eyes back to the man. “You give us too much credit—Jon, was it?”

“Yes,” Jon said faintly.

“You want to see our log books?”

“You’re logging all of this in _books_?” Jon asked, recoiling. “Hardcopy only?” Then, “Yes, I do. Good lord.”

“Um, I can leave you to it?” Martin said, already backing away towards the lifts.

“Yes, thank you,” Jon said quickly. “May I come in, Vihaan?”

“You have to scramble through,” Vihaan said, still grinning. “I can pull, if you need help.”

“Vihaan, be nice,” the long-haired young woman sighed, coming up behind her coworker. Her loose floral dress swirled around her ankles like frothy waves. “Martin, wait! You know where the good mugs are?”

“By Elias’ office?”

“That’s right. Could you grab a couple? We’re low.”

“S-sure,” Martin said. “Um, be right back.”

“You’re a lifesaver, thanks.” The woman tugged the door open and waved Jon in. “I’m Sasha. Gilpin’s back there, they’re hogging the label gun—”

“I’m _using_ it, Christ!”

Sasha chuckled fondly at the outraged yell, which had come from a dense cluster of filing cabinets. “Sonja’s in the other room. The full Artifact Storage room. Sorry, you can’t go back there right now because she’s checking one of the boxes that we were sent this week from—”

The door across from the Artifact Storage entrance slammed open. “Fucking _Leitners_ ,” roared a middle-aged woman, her long sweater flapping behind her as she sprinted out of the dim, cavernous room that Jon just caught a glimpse of before the door swung shut again. “Gilpin!”

“Yes?” Gilpin called from the cabinets, still unseen.

“Where’s Gertrude?

“She’s not back yet,” Gilpin said. “Still in the field, though god knows what field she’s in.” 

The woman skidded to a stop and pounded her hand against her thigh in directionless fury. “Shit! When?”

“When what?” Vihaan asked.

“What happened?” Jon asked, bewildered.

“Another Leitner submitted, no warning label,” the woman snarled. “It’s _leaking_."

“Urg,” Sasha said, just as Jon asked, “What’s a Leitner?”

“Yeah, it’s a nasty one,” the woman said, ignoring Jon to respond to Sasha.

“Biohazard’s on my desk this week,” Vihaan said, gesturing to a spindly card table with a rolly chair tucked neatly under it. There was indeed a biohazard bag and plastic bin set on top of a precarious heap of printouts.

“We had supplies in Storage,” the woman said, waving his offer away impatiently. “I wanted Gertrude’s opinion on how to dispose of something that won’t stop emitting liquid. It’s already half-filled a bucket. We can’t keep it contained forever if it’s going to keep leaking. Not even sure where we should be dumping it, frankly. When’s Gertrude back?”

“She won’t be back for another week, I expect,” called the voice from the filing cabinets, which had yet to produce a Gilpin. 

“Blood, is it?” Vihaan asked.

The woman nodded ruefully. “Old blood, too. And it looks like it’s mixed with an oil slick. I’m not even sure what set the damn thing off.”

“Excuse me,” Jon snapped, “but _what_ is a Leitner?”

The woman gave him a curious once-over, brushing her close-cropped greying hair out of her eyes. “Hello?”

Vihaan slapped Jon’s shoulder and said, “This is Jon. He’s a new researcher, checking out our records down here and making sure they’re readable and such. Jon, this is Sonja, Head of Artifact Storage.”

“A pleasure,” Jon said through gritted teeth. He stepped away from Vihaan to avoid further manhandling.

Sonja looked between the two of them. “Good to meet you, Jon. Let me know if you need anything, but for now I have to send an email that’ll get yet _another_ away-from-office response.” She raced off again, this time darting into a door that read ‘Head of Artifact Storage.’

Jon rounded on Vihaan. “What’s a Leitner?”

“A book. Part of a library of fucked up books owned by Jurgen Leitner.”

A very old, scabbed-over memory snapped into Jon’s mind. A strange book with a bookplate that, yes, had referenced Leitner. It had almost made him do something dangerous. Someone else had done it instead. He fought to keep his tone normal as he asked, “A library of odd books?”

“They’re all by different authors,” Sasha chimed in. “Leitner’s name is just in the front of all them. They’re based on editions of books that actually exist, and they all have different… abilities. They do things when you read them. Sometimes they do things to you.”

“Spooky, eh?” Vihaan said.

“Yes,” Jon said. He could tell his voice was fainter than it should be. He cleared his throat. “What do they do?”

“Well, it’s all over the place, really,” Vihaan said, beginning to frown. It wasn’t directed a Jon, but more like he was remembering something unpleasant. He worried th scar on his lip with his teeth. “Sometimes they make you do something you don’t want to do. Sometimes people just disappear. Sometimes they teach you something, and it starts changing you. Some you can’t forget, no matter how much you might want to. They’re really dangerous. We don’t like when a new one pops up, especially if there isn’t someone to explain what it does. Gertrude hates them, too. There’s quite the crusade to find all of them. There are a fair number of statements about Leitners, actually.”

“Do you have access to those statements?” Jon said, and he hoped he managed to say it at a normal speed and not like it was suddenly a very important piece of research he needed to complete right now.

Vihaan gave him a searching look. “Yeah, a bit. You should, too, though Archives is Gertrude’s domain and she guards it well. We have some intake notes from past Leitners we’ve gotten, I know where those are. Actually, it’s probably a good idea for you to have a sense of what to look for, if you’re going to be in and out of the Library. Leitners shouldn’t show up there but it’s happened before. It’s a bit confusing for people, sometimes, having a research library that doesn’t accept evil books, but they’re dangerous objects.”

“Ah, thanks, Martin!” Sasha said suddenly.

“Sure,” Martin said, sliding a few mugs through the window to Artifact Storage. “Um, do you need me for anything else?”

“You could join us for tea,” Sasha suggested.

“Oh! Okay,” Martin said. He reached through the window and let himself in, smiling nervously at all of them. Vihaan turned on an electric kettle that sat in a corner of the Artifact Storage office that was set up to be a hodgepodge kitchen. The kettle sat on one of a pair of miniature fridges, and there was a hand sanitizer dispenser bolted to the wall nearby. A microwave balanced on the other mini-fridge.

“We have to wash the mugs in the upstairs breakroom, and that’s just a bit too much,” Vihaan explained as he dug out a sampler of tea packets. “We wait until Friday evening and just run them all in the dishwasher. And until then, we steal from Elias. He’s got more mugs than he needs and he slashed our budget last year.”

“Not that we’re bitter,” called the disembodied voice of Gilpin.

“Definitely not,” Sasha said, winking at Jon. 

“Jon, you wanted to see the records on Leitners?” Vihaan said. “There’s a few in Gilpin’s files, if they can break from labelling to show you what's what. Ah, that reminds me, Martin? Could you take Sasha to find another bucket while we’re waiting for tea? You know the supply closet. I think a Leitner may start overflowing if we can’t get it to shut off soon.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm making up the staffing structure as I go and cramming OCs in where it seems to fit and it's heaven for me, a fan of large and messy casts. Diana, Hannah, Sonja, and Rosie are canon Magnus Archives staff. Gilpin's name is from the show _Nadiya's Time to Eat_ , which I watched with my friend Hic and we absolutely adored fish farmer Gilpin's name so that's here now. Following the podcast's established convention of character last names coming from horror writers, I got Diana’s last name from Tananarive Due (extra pun cuz ‘due’ is like ‘library book due’), Jon’s supervisor Katie from Brandon Massey, Jason’s last name is from Nuzo Onoh, and librarian Hannah (who shows up next chapter) is from Harlan Ellison. I don't read a lot of horror but I'd like to expand, and this is as good an excuse as any to seek some names to check out!
> 
> I have a long series of texts from Hic yelling about the archiving practices of the Magnus Institute and her biggest suggestion (so far) is that they should use the MARC cataloguing system. I love having a librarian friend in these fic-writing times.


	3. September 2011

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If you're curious about evil books, talk to your local librarian.

Jon slid a wodge of photographs across the counter of the library help desk, where Hannah Ellison was sitting with a fat little book held close to her face. “Hello, Hannah. I spoke with the Storage staff last week and they said that they had quite a few Leitners but wouldn’t allow them to be handled. They also said there were statements about Leitners, though those are proving… difficult to locate. Do you remember any of these passing through the Library donation bin?” He started to fan out the photos, showing some poorly-lit books of various ages, colors, and binding styles. All had a neat label in the bottom left corner, for scale and to clarify their titles.

Hannah shook her head as she pushed the photos back to him. “I really don’t like recommending Leitners, Jon. Not a safe area of study, even if you work here. That’s for Storage and the Archive to handle. The Library is just a resource. We definitely don’t take unvetted books anymore.”

“Bad experience?”

She sighed and stuck a finger in her book to hold her place. “We have a lot more… excitement when Gertrude is in-house.” She glanced around the library, but Jon had chosen his time well—it was empty of curious students or researchers. 

Hannah added, “I shudder to think of the state of the Archive at this point. You think the Library’s bad for waiting this long to start updating our records? Gertrude’s the only one who’s been working on collecting statements outside of the voluntary visitors for decades and she’s hardly ever here.” She leaned in, preparing to impart some spicy office gossip. “Jason said the next time she attends a board meeting, he’ll resign. He’s sick of her, but he’s never had to follow through because she’s always away on business.”

“I see,” Jon said. “The Archive is our best source of first-hand accounts of the supernatural, though, correct?”

“Yeah,” Hannah said, leaning back and beginning to frown. “They did tell you they were dangerous?"

“Yes,” Jon said. “I showed up as they discovered they’d gotten one in Storage, actually.”

“Oh lord, how did they handle it?” Hannah said. “Was anyone hurt?”

“No, it was only leaking. I think Martin was a bit traumatized, but it was just blood,” Jon said, though he couldn’t suppress a small shudder as he remembered the oiliness of the liquid that seeped from the book. Whatever it was, it hadn’t been ‘just’ blood that the book was floating in. Martin had perhaps been justified in dry-heaving immediately.

“Poor man,” Hannah said sympathetically. “It always pays to check the frontispiece before you read a book outside of the Library. Even if the title is familiar—you know Leitners are all some sort of custom edition of existing texts? Storage keeps them locked up tight, normally, but I always worry about one slipping through the cracks. Though I suppose it wouldn’t be Gertrude’s fault if one did. She’s brutal about Leitners. She labels them very clearly when she sends one to us. Doesn’t want them in the wrong hands.”

Jon wondered if the Leitner from Gertrude that Storage had received the other day had come with a warning, then decided it wasn’t his business. Sonja could take it up with Gertrude herself, if Gertrude ever surfaced. He refocused on his priority for this conversation. “Um, statements about Leitners, where are those kept?”

Hannah gave a sad shrug-and-headshake combo. “That’s Gertrude’s prerogative, I’m afraid. We have some tapes from a few years ago that she recorded from statements, and we have original copies that were sent in as primary sources—though those are for Institute staff only, don’t go spreading around that we have those documents saved. Research students can access the tapes and recordings, nothing more.”

“…Tapes?”

Hannah laughed at whatever expression of horror Jon was currently wearing. “Gertrude’s been here for nearly fifty years. She recorded on magnetic tape decks because they were what she had, and the ones we have still work fine. Haven’t gotten around to fully digitizing yet, though Rosie out front does all right with her recording equipment for most walk-in statement-givers. Gertrude doesn’t care so much about those, though. They’re behind a firewall but your credentials should get you access to recordings. Come see me if you don’t have permissions, or you could ask Katie.”

“Right. Thank you, Hannah. Ah, has anyone actually met Jurgen Leitner?”

“Anyone from the Institute? Not as far as I know. Storage would probably kill him if they got their hands on him.” Hannah chuckled again, though there was an edge to it. “There’s a research project to occupy your free time!”

Jon snorted. “What free time?”

“Workaholic,” Hannah said fondly.

“What else is there to do with life but try and answer the unanswerable questions, Hannah?”

“Oh, you and Martin should talk poetry, he’s a bit of a Keats freak.”

Jon couldn’t help pulling a face of disgust, and Hannah let out a bark of surprised laughter.

“Sorry,” Jon said. “Poetry is… not my thing.”

“All right, all right.” Hannah picked up her book and flipped it open on her bookmark. “Anything else? We don’t keep Leitners here and he’s not a well-known man, so you’re probably better off with a Google. I suppose you could rummage through the statement tapes, but that catalogue was a mess before I got here and it hasn’t improved.”

“No. Thank you, Hannah.”

“Any time. Good luck!”


	4. October 2011

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon gets a new coworker that he already knows.

Sasha was sitting in the desk next to Jon’s when he came in to work, three hours late thanks to a doctor’s appointment and a closed Tube station during a key point in his commute. The first thing he noticed was the significantly increased stack of files on his desk. That meant Gertrude was back; she always emerged from whatever investigative holes she fell into with a pile of research to debunk. 

It was close enough to lunch time that the Research bullpen should have been empty. Jon had been looking forward to diving into his work in relative quiet, but here was Sasha, sitting a few meters away. She’d gotten a rather dramatic haircut—from her waist to something resembling a bob. The amount of curl to her hair was extensive without the length dragging it down. Her head snapped up when Jon set his messenger bag down and she gave him a wan smile. “Heya, Jon.”

“Good morning. Or, er, afternoon. Can I help you?”

“I don’t think so,” she said. “Or, actually, yes, but… I’ve transferred to Research. We’re going to be working together now. Closer than before, I mean.” She indicated her work area, which had the growing clutter of a new researcher. Her stack of research files was much smaller than Jon’s.

“Ah. May I ask why?” Gilpin was pleasant, if a bit boisterous, but Jon could picture how Vihaan’s casual camaraderie might be unsettling. Still, Sasha had seemed to regard him with fond exasperation. Their teasing had reminded Jon of how Georgie acted around her siblings.

Sasha had deep circles under her eyes, despite her neatly-applied makeup. She didn’t meet Jon’s gaze as she said, “Some of the testing they do in Storage is really freaky. I asked to transfer after… a bad experience.”

“I see.” Jon considered what more to say and finally settled on, “I’m sorry that happened to you.”

“Yeah, well.”

“I hope working in Research feels… safer,” Jon said. “I’ve certainly never been asked to do something outside of my comfort zone by Katie, Chae-won, Jason or Nathan.” 

Sasha was smiling a little. “I think it will feel a bit more… removed. Thanks, Jon.”

He wasn’t quite sure what ‘removed’ meant, but Jon said, “Of course. Have you been given a caseload already?”

“Yeah, Jason gave me these to start out with.” She patted her small pile of notes and files. “I saw that, ah, Gertrude kind of dumped a lot on you. I did try to ask her about that, but she had something to work on in the Library and had to rush off. I can take a few off your hands, if you’d like?”

Jon peered at the stacks. Gertrude’s crabbed handwriting was all over the margins of a statement, requesting more detail and a follow-up about this or that minor character, or a location check, or a confirmation that the Latin name for a species of spider was correct. There were none of the bluish travel permission forms that meant he would have to go somewhere to confirm something in-person. Those were the most time-consuming. He said, “It’s fine. Do you know where you can start?”

“I have an idea. I was wondering why we don’t have any databases to check, though.”

“Oh, we do,” Jon said. “I have a few useful ones bookmarked on my computer, I’ll email them to you.”

“I think a searchable, internal Institute database would be useful,” Sasha said. “Has no one from the Library mentioned setting up an internal database before?”

“Not to me, though I haven’t been here much longer than you,” Jon said. “I think categories would be useful, though, yes. I know Diana’s committed to the MARC system, which I, I will admit I am… That is not my specialty. Perhaps a grad student internship program could make some initial headway? You could ask Elias. We’re all somewhat swamped here with tracking and verifying time-sensitive paranormal phenomena. There isn’t exactly a seasonal down-time for the unexplained.”

“I don’t know that Elias knows what a database system is,” Sasha said, smirking. “He’s got sending his own emails down, but have you seen them? The tone is weird and the formatting is all over the place. And I think he fingerpecks.” Sasha demonstrated, her candy-colored manicure glittering as she stabbed down with her index fingers on an imaginary keyboard. “I heard him once, when I was on a mission for mugs.”

Jon shrugged, uncomfortable with office gossip. “At least you can be reasonably certain he’ll answer an email if you send one to him.”

“True. He checks it religiously. He might also have some insight on the phenomena down-time pattern thing. He’s very calendar obsessed. Did you notice that?”

“What, really?”

“Oh, definitely.” Sasha snickered.

Jon was not very familiar with Elias or his habits (apart from his insistance on using first names in a workplace that purported to be a place of higher learning), but the man lacked an administrative assistant and did seem to have a larger, toothier smile than usual when he got to the company calendar portion of the bi-monthly staff meetings. “I… I suppose I can see that. Rather a weird habit.”

“Not the weirdest thing in the Archive,” Sasha said, winking at him. Her grin faded quickly, though, as if she remembered something unpleasant. Her mouth twisted.

“Sasha? No one was… unkind to you in Storage, were they?”

“What? No! Oh, no, it’s just… the work was more stressful than I’d hoped. This job is a, well... frankly it’s a paycut, and I’ll miss working with the Storage staff, but. Yeah. I think I’ll be more use here.” She waggled her first file. “I’m pretty handy with search engines.”

“Right. Well. Good,” Jon said, and bent his head to his work. After a moment, he said, “Good to have you,” and he meant it. 

“…Jon?”

“Hm.”

“A few of us are going for drinks after work tomorrow, if you’d like to join?”

Jon looked up at her for that. She had her head cocked and was smiling at him a bit. It had been quite a few years since he’d last been invited anywhere by someone who wasn’t Georgie. He also hadn’t had the best experiences with joining coworkers in bars. 

“Uh, thank you, Sasha. I’ll see if I can make it.” Sasha’s eyebrows rose above the rims of her glasses and Jon realized how that might sound. He quickly added, “Not! Not that my social calendar is… This is rather a large caseload I have, I’m afraid. As you can see. And I was already working on tracking down instances of unexplained lights in Lincolnshire in the past decade, but all the websites are, well, subpar. Perhaps some other time?”

Sasha’s smile had faded, but she sounded sincere when she said, “Whenever you like, Jon.”

“…Thank. Thank you?” He bent his head back to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jon will be making no friends in this fic (no matter how hard they all try). It's hard to write someone so prickly! Next chapter's Martin-POV because I need a kindness break, haha.
> 
> I don't know much about the MARC system but my Library Science friend insists it would be a solution to all the archiving problems Jon runs into at the beginning of the podcast (well, all the ones related to archiving, anyway), and I trust her judgement.


	5. February 2012

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Martin POV chapter! Mentions of his mom and Jon's past workplace being bad. Also people gossiping about Jon but he doesn't know about that, he doesn't appear in this chapter.

Martin was set up in the breakroom, under the humming fluorescent lights, with a pile of envelopes and over three hundred letters to fold into thirds. He shoved up the sleeves of his jumper and dove into yet another mailing project with a sigh. It was a bad day to forget his headphones at home—this would have been an ideal time to catch up on podcasts.

He was an hour into the project and the stack of letters looked marginally smaller when he came up for air. Sasha from Research, Tom from the Library, Gilpin from Storage, and Rosie from Admin were standing by the kettle, each holding a mug. It must be teatime. Martin considered joining them, but stayed where he was. They were already talking—it would be awkward to break in now. He pulled another stack of letters towards him but kept his attention on the group.

“…hasn’t yet,” Sasha was saying. She sounded a bit resigned.

“You going to tap that, Sasha?” Gilpin teased, bumping their shoulder with Sasha’s. “He’s got grungy, thrift store, professorial hotness going on.”

“No, not my type,” Sasha grimaced. “He’s a bit too, ah, you know. Tetchy?”

“Controlled, but in a repressed way?” Tom suggested. “Hannah has a theory he’s one of those ‘sleep three hours a night’ geniuses since he’s here at all hours. The man lives to work instead of working to live.”

“The cleaning staff complain,” Rosie said. “He doesn’t yell at them or anything when they go to clean the Research office and he’s still in there—at nine at night!—but he glares and he sighs and they say it’s very pointed.”

Gilpin laughed their soundless, wheezy laugh, curls trembling with mirth. “He looks like an affronted cat all the time! Bet he goes home and curls up on a couch and just waits for the sun to come up. Apartment to work and back again, nothing more. Stares at the ceiling for entertainment. Organizes his ties.”

“I’m working on him,” Sasha said. “He’ll smile, but his sense of humor is… he’s hard to pin down. It’s interesting.”

Tom coughed. “He _is_ quite tetchy.” He was watching Sasha with an appreciative, nearly possessive interest that Martin was not surprised to see. Sasha was lovely and clever and kind, and the primary instigator of the Institute’s social calendar. She even invited Martin to things, and he wasn’t generally seen as a good person in a group setting. It sounded like she’d been trying to get a coworker to join events too. It was surprising that she’d been working on the man for what sounded like a while and hadn’t gotten him to come to at least the weeknight Happy Hour.

Sasha was saying, “I don’t know a thing about his personal life.”

“You haven’t asked if he’s single?” Rosie sounded astonished.

“I’m _not asking him out_ ,” Sasha laughed. “And I don’t think he’d appreciate me asking about his relationship status, either. He dodges personal questions. He has a pretty narrow view on what’s appropriate to talk about in the office. I did gather his last workplace was a bit, ah, not the best. Made him uncomfortable.”

“That’s the water,” Gilpin said, reaching for the bubbling kettle.

“Well, he’s never submitted any HR complaint that I know of,” Rosie said.

“Those are confidential,” Tom said, eyebrows raised.

“I wouldn’t tell you if he _had_ submitted any. I just told you he _didn’t_ ,” Rosie said sharply.

“Tea, Martin?” Gilpin called, and Martin jumped as four heads turned to him. 

“Oh! Um, yes, thanks Gilpin.”

Martin could hear Tom mutter to Sasha, “Didn’t realize he was in here.”

Gilpin nodded affably. “Flavor?”

“I-is there still jasmine?” Martin asked. Tom was still muttering to Sasha. He grinned at her and she gave him an unimpressed look. His smile faded as she shifted her weight to lean away from him. Martin had the nasty suspicion that it had been an unkind comment about him.

“Yep.” Gilpin dropped a teabag in the mug that was, unofficially, Martin’s—a dingy blue mug with some cracks under the glaze that leaked an orangey-goldenrod. Whatever logo had been on it had faded years ago to a shield-shaped patch of white. It was big, that was the best part of it. Martin drank a lot of tea.

“Thanks,” Martin said again when Gilpin passed the mug over.

Gilpin stayed, though, and leaned their hip against the table. “Project going well?”

“Not bad. No papercuts yet.”

Gilpin huffed. Maybe it was a laugh, maybe it was to cool off their tea, which was in a mug that said ‘genda agenda’ in a bubble font that was striped like the agender flag. They took a gulp

“Doesn’t that hurt?” Martin asked.

“Can’t get a cuppa hot enough to stop me. What’s all this for?”

Martin looked at the drifts of paper surrounding him. “Oh, another mailer. Finance and Development want to send it out tomorrow morning.”

“Have you read it?” Gilpin asked, tugging one of the letters over. They peered at it. “Ah. ‘From the Desk of Elias Bouchard.’ Aw, shit, the gala!”

Martin winced at the change in volume but the other three people by the kettle groaned in unison.

“I forgot!” Sasha said. “It’s in my calendar and I still forgot.”

“It’s a nightmare to coordinate,” Rosie assured her. “Absolute administrative hell.”

“Diana’s going to go spare,” Tom said. “Someone always tries to snog in the Library and knocks something important over.”

“I’ll have to wear a tie,” Gilpin wailed. They looked down at Martin. “So will you, eh? Suppose it’s not all bad.” One bright blue eye flickered with a wink.

Martin blinked at them for a moment, feeling the blush spreading up from his collar. “Oh, I, uh, I’m not generally… I can’t really go to these. Got some after-work stuff to do. Plus that would mean I’d need to buy a tie.”

Gilpin’s eyes lit up. “Borrow one from Jon Sims! He’s got plenty.”

“Who?” Martin said.

“Sasha’s coworker, he’s in research. Sasha, ask Jon for a spare tie,” Gilpin called. “Hell, ask for a few. What if we all went in his accessories?”

Sasha looked thoughtful. “Getting ourselves outfitted Sims-style? Gilpin, you are a genius, but the deciding factor is, of course, Jon.”

“You’re the Jon-whisperer,” Gilpin said. “If anyone can do it, you can.”

“Don’t get your hopes up,” Sasha warned, but she was smiling. She cocked her head at Martin. “You want me to ask for one for you?”

“Nah,” Martin said, smiling his ‘I’m normal and don’t have a mum resents needing my help’ smile. “I can’t make this year’s, I know that for sure. Sorry.”

“That’s all right,” Sasha said. She glanced around at the clock on the wall and winced. “All right, I have a cursed teddy bear-covered couch to track down before someone else gets consumed.” She headed out.

“Mm. Break’s over, then, I guess.” Gilpin gave Martin a nod and ambled out the side door. Rosie and Tom weren’t far behind. 

Martin went back to folding letters in silence. Unbidden, his thoughts turned to his mum. She wouldn’t eat if he wasn’t there to help her. She didn’t eat much when he was there to help, of course, but it felt incredibly… wrong not to be there. Her glare would be that much more baleful if he abandoned her for the whole evening. The few Happy Hours he’d attended were already pushing it.

Martin swallowed hard, a knot of anxiety rising in his throat. His hands stilled on the paper. He needed to shake himself out of these kinds of thoughts. He puttered around the breakroom, scrubbing all the mugs abandoned in the sink and setting them up to dry on the rack. It eased his worries a bit. It seemed a logical next step to get another brew on—Martin’s tea was long-gone. He picked something random out of the sampler and sighed before turning back to tackle the stack of gala invitations. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jon is an office cryptid to anyone who doesn't work with him in Research. Appears to look grumpy and then vanishes into his work.
> 
> I made up Gilpin's mug and I want it so bad now. Also, more people should flirt with Martin.
> 
> I did have to edit this post-live show. I cut Jon walking in and refusing to lend people his ties, but not too much changed. I added the bit about the couch made entirely of teddy bears, that showed up on tumblr for me and was terrifying.


	6. July 2012

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mentions of Martin's mother, an unspecified chronic health condition, and hospital fears. Jon is awkward about all of this.

Katie rapped her knuckles sharply on his desk, wedding ring lending weight to her taps. “Jon!”

“Hm!” Jon looked up from the list he was compiling of Glasgow-local butchers active between 1996 and 2002. “Yes, Katie?”

“We have an Archivist in the house again and about a dozen new cases to investigate to see if the statements are worth her time.” Katie grinned at him, all teeth and lavender hair and wrinkles and no joy. “Deadlines’re moved up. Can you have five statement reports by the end of the day? Doesn’t matter what kinds, she just needs _something_ or else we’ll all get it.”

Jon breathed deep. “…Right. Yes, that should be fine. Is she, ah, going to put in an appearance?”

“What, here?” Katie snorted. “Jason wouldn’t stand for it. I heard him and Elias earlier; Jason’s pissed. Keep your head down. Chae-won’s already staking out the Library. Nathan’ll be working from home for the week because of his wife’s surgery, lucky bastard.”

Jon privately wondered if caring for your partner in surgery recovery counted as ‘lucky.’ Working from home was impossible where he lived—the noise of the train passing by during the day would distract him, his WiFi was spotty, and he never seemed to pull the right books from the Library unless he got Hannah or Chae-won to help. Katie seemed to be on a roll, though, so he hummed in sympathy.

Katie kept chatting, but Jon knew from experience that she didn’t need him to pay attention. He started gathering his least-intensive statements for quick reporting as she said, “We need more researchers if Gertrude’s going to keep digging up material with this many moving parts. I mean, flesh-eating diseases? The Library has a medical section but we need to talk to some specialists, and I can’t put Martin on it or he’ll be sick, poor lad. I need to talk to Jason about hiring one or two more— Ah!” Katie waved Sasha down as she brought a stack of tomes toward her desk, striped dress swishing with every step. “Sasha! Heads up, Gertrude’s back!”

“Oh, perfect!” Sasha said, and Jon paused to stare at her. She’d sounded genuinely pleased. He’d never heard anyone talk about Gertrude with delight in their voice.

“Is it?” Katie said, clearly thrown as well.

“Yeah, I had some questions about statement filing practices that I wanted to ask her about.”

Katie winced. “Your funeral, I suppose.”

“She’s not… bad,” Sasha said, though she didn’t sound certain about that one.

“She’s terrifying,” Katie said flatly. “Has been ever since I started here, back in the 90s.”

Sasha dropped her books on her desk. “Ooof. I need to catch her before she vanishes again, though. Where’s Nate?”

“Stella’s got her thing.”

“Ahhh, pity. I’ll whip a card around.”

Jon ducked his head back to work, confident he wouldn’t need to do more than sign ‘wishing a speedy recovery. -Jon.’ 

After wrapping up his butcher list, Jon immersed himself in comparisons of ectoplasm noted among various statements in the 1990s. It took some effort not to wonder what fluids people had actually encountered when they described such non-Newtonian substances.

Jon wasn’t sure how long a large man had been standing by his desk before he noticed. Jon leaned back to see if Sasha had the jewel-tone sticky note pad and there he was, hair pulled back in a stubby ponytail. He had the sleeves rolled up on his pale button-down but was still sweating from the heat. 

Jon said, “Yes, hello? What do you want?”

“Is, is. Sasha…?” The man was worrying the hem of his button-down. “Is she around?”

“She’s speaking with Gertrude. Or, she was going there when…” Jon checked his watch. It was well past one in the afternoon. His neck helpfully reminded him that he’d been poring over statements for four hours without a break. “Hm. Well, she was going there this morning, but I don’t know that she and Gertrude could have a conversation this long. I’m not sure where she is. What did you need her for?”

“Oh, uh. We were just going to lunch together today. Sasha and Gertrude get on really well, actually. She, she probably just forgot.” He was smiling but he sounded miserable. He took a breath and added, much more convincingly, “It’s fine, I’ll text her and see where she is.”

“Right,” Jon said. He pressed at the back of his neck and turned it just the right amount to get it to crack.

The man winced. “Oh, wow! Are you all right?”

Jon tested his head rotation and then had to take a grip on his desk as his head started to spin. “Ah. I, uh. Yes, I’m fine. It just… does that.” He swallowed hard, spots dancing at the edge of his vision. “I’m fine,” he repeated.

“No, you aren’t! When did you last drink water? Or eat?”

“Recently,” Jon said quickly, lying through his teeth. “Definitely… not long ago.”

Based on the man’s exasperated expression, Jon hadn’t lied well. “Do you have a lunch with you today?”

“Yes,” Jon lied again.

The man sighed heavily. “Sasha and I were going to go to the sandwich shop round the corner. What will you eat from there? Any allergies? Restrictions?”

Jon blinked at him. “N-no?”

“I’ll grab you something.” The man left with purpose in his step. Jon watched him, bewildered, a little too slow to do anything about it. As he looked back at his workstation, he saw his neat row of used tea mugs on the edge of his desk, well away from any important documents or electronics. His mug for today was full of oolong and room temperature, completely forgotten. Jon sipped at it. It was too warm of a day for hot tea. The Archive, Artifact Storage, and Library were the priority areas to maintain steady temperatures, so Research and Admin just sweated during the summer and shivered during the winter. Jon rolled his sleeves up to his elbows, unbuttoned his collar one button, and took another sip of tepid tea. No wonder he was dehydrated. 

Where had he seen the large man in glasses? He knew Sasha, but she was a popular person. Jon couldn’t recall if he’d seen the man before around the Institute—maybe in the Library? He seemed vaguely familiar.

Jon was back to fact-checking when the man tapped his shoulder with a paper-wrapped packet that turned out to be turkey on rye. It took Jon a long moment to remember why he was getting bonked with a sandwich. “Ah. Thank you. How much do I owe you?”

“It’s no problem,’ the man said. 

“Don’t be ridiculous, I can pay you back.” Jon glanced around for his bag.

“Really, it’s fine! It’s just a sandwich.”

“Oh. Well. Thank you.” Jon peered at him. “Where’s yours?”

“Hm?” The man shrugged. “I, I’m fine. Don’t worry about it.”

Jon squinted. “Am I taking your lunch from you?”

“What? No, no, of course not!”

The man was looking at him with puzzlement that seemed genuine. Jon sat back and opened the sandwich. It was huge, and cut into triangles. Jon watched out of the corner of his eye as the man turned away. The growl from his stomach was audible. His ears went red, which was perfect timing enough to make Jon suppress a smile.

“Oh, good lord. Here,” Jon said, taking one sandwich triangle for himself and sliding the rest over. “Sit down.”

The man’s ears were still bright red and he didn’t seem to know what else to say. His mouth moved nervously, then he sighed. He pulled Sasha’s desk chair over and sat, a little cautiously. After a moment of silent chewing, he asked, “So, ah, how’s research going?”

“Rather swamped at the moment. I have two cases ready and three left to get done by the end of the day.”

“Oh! I didn’t— I forgot Gertrude being here would mean— Um, well, we’ll do our best in the Library to help out.”

“Yes,” Jon said, stomach sinking. So this man was a colleague. Jon had no idea if he’d seen him in the Library before, but Jon tended to go in there after the Institute closed so he could avoid the students and visitors. He rapidly re-evaluated what they could talk about and settled on, “My supervisor, Katie, thinks we need more researchers for the department.”

“Yeah, I s’pose you do,’ the man agreed. “Sasha and Chae-won are always running around the Library with a huge list. Nate hasn’t been in yet, has he?”

Jon wasn’t sure how much to share in this case, so he stuck with, “He’s working from home.”

“Oh!” The man covered his mouth as crumbs scattered. “Shit, I forgot. He was telling us about how he would be taking care of Stella after surgery during the last Happy Hour. I hope it goes well.”

“Yes, well. I assume you’ll hear how it goes.”

“Yeah. Wow. That’s scary.”

“Is it?” Jon asked. “I hadn’t heard specifics on what it was for. It seemed like a personal topic. Nate didn’t seem too worried so I thought it was routine.”

“Oh, no, Stella will be fine, it’s nothing major. I just meant, you know. Hospitals,” the man said, as if that explained everything.

“Have you had a bad experience in hospitals?” Jon asked.

The man stared at him, eyes wide. “Uh.”

Jon considered what he’d said and winced. “Oh. That, uh. You, you don’t have to answer that, that was extremely personal. Inappropriate. I’m sorry.” He took another bite of sandwich. 

They both were sitting there in silence, chewing. Jon hadn’t even introduced himself, and he didn’t know this man’s name or if he should already know it. This was too awkward. Jon had made this too awkward. He pushed the rest of the sandwich closer to the man. “Thank you again for reminding me to eat today. And for sharing your lunch. I do have to finish checking this building history and submit reports for two more statements, though.”

“Right,” the man said, standing quickly and folding the rest of the sandwich up in paper. He wasn’t looking at Jon anymore, and while he didn’t appear miserable, he also seemed eager to get away. “Um, good luck?”

“Thank you,” Jon said. He turned back to work and listened to the retreating footsteps until the man was out of the room and Jon could mash his eyes with the heels of his hands.

He always said the wrong thing. Sometimes it was on purpose, as he knew how to be an asshole and end a conversation he didn’t want to have, but at other times, he really just did not know how to read the situation. He should not talk to people about personal matters, that much was clear. While the Magnus Institute had proven to be a far more comfortable work environment than Jon’s previous employer, it was still a place of work, and he needed to remember to maintain a professional distance in his discussions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should have just cut this whole chapter if I wanted to stick with the canon that Martin and Jon hadn't met before Jon became the Archivist, but I liked this interaction! Instead, I had to cut a LOT of Jon trying to connect with Martin as a person to fit with the canon that he doesn't know (aka recognize) Martin until they're working in the Archive together. There was a whole bit of Jon trying to be comforting about hospitals but then accidentally using the story of his grandmother dying as 'comforting,' which was painfully awkward. That draft is just for me, now. Instead, Jon receives confirmation that he is Bad at People, and this goes in his long-term memory as yet another failed coworker interaction.


	7. May 2013/April 2018

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim's here now!! He wants to bond with his coworkers, and there's no better way than karaoke. 
> 
> Also there's a time jump to accommodate probably the crackiest part of this entire anthology. I saw a tumblr post that I can no longer find (I feel bad I didn't save it somewhere except in my heart/brain) that posited that Jon during season 4 would be amazing at karaoke and also terrified of his newfound abilities. I had a deep desire to write it.
> 
> This chapter includes alcohol use, intoxication, and coworkers making Jon uncomfortable but then promising to do better.

_May 2013_  
Timothy Stoker wore raspberry-colored trousers to work on his first day in the Research division, and Sasha audibly gasped. It was an explosion of color in a world of beige. Sasha had even found herself slipping into neutrals, lulled by the dress code and her fellow employees’ fashion sense. She could already tell that he was going to be a breath of fresh air. 

Tim smiled almost constantly. He had a tongue piercing—he showed the entire staff when Katie introduced him, and Sasha drank in the horrified look on Jon’s face, Chae-won’s eyeroll, and the utter exhaustion of Katie and Nate. 

After the new employee introduction, Jon disappeared behind the stacks of cases he had been taking on on to avoid befriending anyone. Being out of sight couldn’t save him from Tim, though.

“What’s that old professor guy’s deal?” Tim asked Sasha in the breakroom. He stood a bit too close (she didn’t mind) and smelled like some sort of spicy, gingery fragrance mixed with smoke. 

Sasha gave him the short version of Jon. “He’s been here a year—started a little after I came on part-time—and he never talks about himself or his life, lives for work, and acts like an ancient grandpa.” She considered, then decided she wanted Tim to join her on her quest to loosen Jonathan Sims up. “This part’s confidential,” she added, lowering her voice, “but I figured out his Facebook and he’s younger than anyone here.”

“Incredible,” Tim gasped. “He looks _geriatric_.”

“Middle-aged, certainly,” Sasha said with a grin. 

Tim tapped his chin in thought. “I wonder what it’d take to get him to do karaoke,” he said as Chae-won came in to grab her lunch.

“Karaoke?” she said, perking up. 

“You partake?” Tim asked.

“I’ve been known to dabble. I do a stellar rendition of any Queen song you care to throw out. I can also pull out ‘Bodies Hit the Floor’ if the night seems too quiet.”

“Brilliant! We’ll make a staff bonding trip of it,” Tim proposed. “Then Jon can’t get out of it and the Institute has to pay for it.”

Chae-won grinned at him. “All right, Stoker, I wasn’t sure at first but I see it now—you’re smart.”

“Were you distracted by the pretty face?” Tim asked.

Chae-won’s grin showed even more teeth. Her sensible lipstick couldn’t hide the threat. “I don’t think you’re ready to sell your own charming qualities to a married lesbian, but who am I to tell you how to live your life?”

“I have great self-esteem,” Tim said firmly, which made Sasha choke on her noodles. Chae-won rolled her eyes again before taking her soup to the microwave that wasn’t possessed.

“I fully support this,” Sasha told Tim, “but I also can’t believe Elias would fund a staff karaoke party.”

“I’m a man with ambition, Sasha,” Tim said, giving her shoulder a friendly nudge. “Surely a champion of the Research department like yourself can relate.”

True to his word, Tim did not give up. It took a few memos to Jason and a weekly, then a daily email to Elias. Finally, though, Tim got the permissions in writing.

“Yes!” He fist-pumped furiously at his workstation. Sasha and Chae-won were laughing. The rest of the Research team was hunting down an artifact in Storage (Nate) or in an inter-departmental meeting (Katie and Jason).

“Now comes the hardest part,” Chae-won reminded him. “Sims won’t go for it.”

“Won’t go for what?” Jon asked, emerging from his stacks of paper. His glasses were nearly falling off his nose. Sasha gave him a meaningful look as she slid her own glasses higher with one finger. He gave a small nod of thanks and folded them up to hang from the chain around his neck.

Chae-won waved at Tim to spit it out, and Tim announced, “Karaoke night for the Research team!”

Jon’s mouth twisted, eyebrows lowering dangerously. “Have fun with that.”

“Team bonding, Jon! You have to join, we’ll be lost without you!” Tim clasped his hands under his chin, eyes pleading. “The Institute’s paying and everything. You have to come!”

“I don’t _have_ to do anything.”

“One night. One glorious night.”

“No.”

“Jon,” Sasha said, and she heard Tim hum with interest. Sasha knew she had a reputation as the Jon-whisperer. She also knew better than to exploit her somewhat privileged position with a very formal man who genuinely seemed to appreciate her as a coworker. It was time to exploit her position though, and she said, “Just this once? I swear, we won’t even make you sing.”

Tim looked at her, pained betrayal written all over his face, but Jon’s expression was turning thoughtful. “Exactly once?”

“Yes. Just like Tim said. We’ve never seen you at Happy Hour and you’ll always be welcome at that, but this is like… a Happy Hour you don’t even have to pay for. And it’s not a regular thing, but it would be nice to hang out a bit outside of work.”

Jon had a faraway look in his eye, like he was running some significant calculations. “Hm.”

It felt like the Research bullpen was holding their breath. Tim’s eyes were wide with hope but he didn’t speak. Chae-won was biting her lip not to laugh.

Jon’s gaze snapped back and he looked around. His shoulders hunched against their collective attention and he said, “Well, we don’t have to make a big deal out of it.”

Sasha beamed. “And it’s Friday, Tim?”

“Friday,” Tim confirmed around a grin. Jon’s eyes were narrowed with suspicion, but he only sighed.

* * *

On Monday, Sasha gave Tim a cautious nod when he arrived. He gave her a regular smile, though, bright and unashamed. He stopped by her desk for a few minutes to tell her about a funny story he’d overheard on the train in from Bromley. It was a bit of a relief to have someone take a drunken make-out session so well, just like he’d promised he would, and she relaxed into bantering with him. Chae-won drifted through, nose in a stack of statements, and leered a bit but didn’t comment.

Jon emerged from his stacks of papers only to grab more books and retreat to his desk again. He was wearing a tie today—the first one Sasha had seen him wear in a while—and a sweatervest. He looked put together and tucked away. He wasn’t looking any of them in the eye.

“Jon?” Tim called. 

“What,” Jon said, not slowing his movement until he was seated again at his desk. Sasha and Tim exchanged a glance.

Tim asked, “Did you have fun on Friday?”

“Friday was fine,” Jon said, voice growing even colder.

“You know, you didn’t have to be the responsible—“

“I do not get drunk with coworkers.” Jon looked up finally. “I would prefer not to discuss it. You all got home safely, no matter how hard you tried to wander off and embarrass yourselves.”

Sasha’s stomach dropped.

“R-right.” Tim shot her a worried look. “Just wanted to say thanks for that, then.”

“You’re welcome. Is that all?”

“I guess, uh. Yes.” 

“Wonderful.” Jon bent his head back over his files. 

Tim raised his eyebrows at Sasha and mouthed _dickhead._ She shook her head and mouthed _prude_ back. Tim cocked a confused eyebrow. He pulled a sticky note pad toward him and wrote RUDE? on it. Sasha added a P to the front of the word and he nodded his agreement.

“Sasha, where’s the annotated copy of statement one-one-zero-six-nine-two-two?” Jon said from right next to them, and they both yelped. Tim slapped a hand over the sticky note pad, but Sasha suspected Jon had already read it. His mouth was a thin, angry line and he was back to not looking at them.

“I-it’s over here,” Sasha said, digging it up.

Jon nodded and returned to his desk. Sasha and Tim looked at each other and winced in unison.

"Sorry!" Tim called.

Jon rubbed his forehead, then turned to look at them. He looked tired for once, not angry, as he said, "Just... not in the workplace?"

"Of course not, Jon," Sasha said.

"I swear to you," Tim said, solemn and serious, hand over his heart, "I can be professional."

"I'll believe it when I see it," Jon said, but a corner of his mouth was twitching and Sasha knew he was trying not to smile.

* * *

_Five years later  
April 2018_

Because he subsisted mainly on tea and statements, Daisy had hypothesized that Jon was incredibly easy to get drunk. She had been proven correct. Daisy bought him a very heavily watered whiskey sour, then a less-watered whiskey-ginger, and finally started saving money by buying him pints of piss-weak beer because he was already sloshed. Jon’s posture slowly unravelled and his shirt buttons opened one after the other.

“It’s a decent investment,” Basira said thoughtfully. “Never thought I’d see him sloppy but here we are and it’s been, what, an hour?”

“Cheap date,” Daisy agreed. “Would you split chips with me? They do it with a kind of chili sauce here.”

“Oop, look out,” Basira said, nudging Daisy to check on their boss.

The back corner of the room held a tiny, tiny karaoke setup. Jon was staring at it like he was going to cry. His expression was raw.

“Starts at ten, Jon,” Daisy murmured. “You want to sing?”

Basira’s mouth dropped open. Daisy winked at her.

Jon was already saying, “I… I suppose. I could. I wonder what the selection is like.”

Daisy had a magnetic effect on bartenders, especially female ones, and she conjured up Tricia without any difficulty. The song book was presented, stained and sticky, with soft pages that had been heavily trafficked. There wasn’t much song variety past 2015. Jon ran his fingers over the names though, and nodded to himself.

At 10pm, Daisy helped Jon lever himself onstage, set him in front of the mic, and queued up the first song he’d said, “Oh, I think I’ve heard that one” to. She gave him a thumbs up as the opening piano began, then turned away.

When she sat back down, Basira was gaping at the stage. The entire bar was watching a thin, sloppy professor of a man who was swaying out of time with the music, stumbling like a baby deer, but hitting every line and note in ‘Someone Like You.’ His shirt was down to its final button, untucked from his battered khakis. A slightly yellowed undershirt was all that stood between the world and what Daisy suspected was probably a pretty scarred-up torso. His grey-streaked hair and five-day beard were wild. He wasn’t close enough for the microphone to pick him up (though he was holding on to it to stay upright) but he didn’t need the amplification. It was incredible to see his entire body inflate and then spew Adele at full volume. 

The entire bar was silent when he finished. The instrumental continued, then faded away. Still silent. Daisy whistled suddenly, and it was like she unleashed the applause. She looked immensely satisfied, and roared, “My mate Jon’s taking requests!”

“Are you trying to kill him again?” Basira muttered. “Just from embarrassment this time?”

From the stage, Jon blinked at her, then gave a small, tentative smile. 

“He’s cushioned by alcohol, he’s feeling no pain,” Daisy said. “Speaking of, I need another beer. Has someone already offered to—? Ah, looks like he’s covered.”

Jon had acquired something clear with a lime in it. He was blinking affably as people crowded around the iPad and started lining up a playlist for him to make his way through.

“If Martin were here he’d combust,” Basira said.

“If Martin were here, Jon wouldn’t be going home alone,” Daisy said.

Basira made a skeptical sound. 

“Martin might be getting _disappointed,_ but he’d be taking that man home,” Daisy said firmly. “Setting him down with a litre of water. Tucking him in. Taking the couch. Filing all of _this_ —“ she waved at the stage “—away for use later.”

Basira gave a huff of amusement and said, “Instead, Jon’s going home alone and waking up with the hangover from hell thanks to you.” 

Daisy nodded. “Poor bastard.”

“Dunno.” Basira squinted as, predictably, the opening notes of ‘Under Pressure’ started playing and Jon took a breath. “He looks like he’s in his element here, weirdly.”

Even Daisy’s eyebrows started to rise as Jon worked his way through the audience-selected setlist without a single stumble. From Dead Kennedys to Florence and the Machine to Cat Stevens, he ran through songs without much in the way of charismatic stage performance, but hitting every note and word.

Basira nudged Daisy finally and said, voice solemn and unamused, “You have to stop him.” 

At this point, he was reciting ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire’ with precision that should have been impossible. There were six empty glasses around Jon and he was hanging on to the mic stand for dear life. His hair was in his eyes, he’d lost his shirt completely but acquired a construction worker’s safety vest from a helpful man who’d donated his for the ‘Y.M.C.A’ rendition, and people had their phones out to film him. 

Daisy stood as the song ended and the audience started screaming their appreciation. She elbowed her way through the crowd and folded Jon over her shoulder. As light as he was, she nearly stumbled, fighting to stay upright under his weight. Recovery from the Buried had been slow. She knew she looked dangerous enough, though, as she bared her teeth at the audience.

“Done here,” she said into the microphone. She left the stage to thunderous booing but no one tried to stop her. Basira slipped out after them and helped her set Jon upright, propping him against a wall a couple blocks away.

“Jon? You with us?” Basira asked him.

His eyes were huge, the glow from a streetlight showing that his pupils were rhythmically dialating and shrinking. “I don’t even know that song,” he whispered hoarsely. A muscle under his eye was humming with tension. “I didn’t know half of them. Not enough to, to—”

“Good voice,” Daisy said, still grinning. “Got a lot of free drinks out of it. Well done. You should hydrate, though. C’mon, we’ll see you home.”

Jon nodded, head wobbly on his scarred neck. He was starting to shiver in the chilly spring air. He had just his vest on—his shirt had been lost somewhere in the crowd. Daisy sighed and settled her coat around his shoulders, then looked expectantly at Basira.

“What,” Basira said.

“Call us a cab. Jon’s paying, he didn’t have to buy drinks all night.”

A corner of Basira’s mouth twitched. “Would this count as exercising his Archivist powers?”

“Ohhh I should say so,” Daisy said with a laugh. “Institute reimbursement?”

“Definitely.”

“I, I feel a bit sick,” Jon croaked. “Sorry.”

“Not in the car,” Basira told him. He swallowed hard and wrapped Daisy’s coat more tightly around his shoulders, hunching against the dark as Basira pulled up a rideshare app on Jon’s phone.


	8. September 2014

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time for those canon-typical worms.

Jon’s phone was rattling on the side table, loud enough to wake him out of a dead sleep. This couldn’t be good. He grabbed it, eyes still closed, and answered with a cough to restart his vocal chords. “Yes? This is Jonathan Sims.” 

“Jon!” 

It took him a moment to recognize the voice. “Jason? Er, Mr. Onoh?”

His boss’ voice was urgent in a way that Jon hadn’t heard in three years of working at the Magnus Institute. “We need you on research. Now.”

Jon pulled the phone away from his ear and held it at the right distance for the numbers to come into focus. It was half past four in the morning and, technically, Monday.

“I should come in?” he said, and then had to bring the phone back to his ear and say it again: “Should I come in?”

“You have your laptop there, right?”

“I— Yes, I do.” He looked at it guiltily, sitting on the floor after a quiet Sunday evening of database-scouring. He’d been gathering more information about Leitners and had wanted to access some of the paywall-protected sites that the Institute paid for. It was technically work on his days off, but he also thought of it as a personal project. An important bit of investigation.

“Just start where you are, then,” Jason said. “The Institute’s locked up and I’m not sure how… Well. We have a request and you should have an email with specifics. I couldn’t get a hold of Katie or Nate, and Sasha’s managing a case for Gertrude right now so I don’t want to derail her.”

“Right,” Jon said, sitting up and swinging his feet to the floor. The ancient couch creaked under him as he pulled up his computer. “Anything you can tell me while I wait for it to boot up?”

“Insects,” Jason said. “Infestation. Maybe some kind of parasitic disease?” 

Jon was feeling more and more awake. “And this is urgent, to look into it?”

“…Yes,” Jason said slowly, like he was thinking about what to say. Maybe he was thinking about how _much_ to say. “If you could focus on worms, that would be ideal. Any current, ongoing research projects in the London area.”

“Universities?”

“Sure. Start with teaching hospitals, though. And you could look into global outbreaks of parasitic worms, but I don’t think you’ll find anything.” There was a rush of static, a sigh on the phone. “At this point, I think all we can do is start ruling things out.”

“I’ll start right away,” Jon said, typing his password into his computer. “When do you need the report by?”

“As soon as you can,” Jason said. “The email should address more of what we’re looking for, but there’s some confidentiality stuff we’re navigating.” There was some rustling in the background and Jon could hear him mutter, “We were _asked_ , though…” It sounded like it was something he was telling himself. Jon remained politely quiet. Jason eventually said, louder, “Just send me what you can, Jon. Please. Any information would be a help, at this point.”

“Certainly,” Jon said. 

“Thanks. Good luck,” Jason said. 

Jon put his phone down and got to work.

* * *

By ten in the morning, Jon had a rough report ready to send out. He blinked at it for a moment, considered running a third spell-check, then gave up and sent it to Jason. Then he stood up for the first time that day and realized that he needed to piss. Badly.

Of course, the call came while he was in the bathroom. He came out to a voicemail from Katie, a bit snippy, saying that Jason had told her Jon wouldn’t be in today but that Gertrude had requested every researcher submit three case reports by the end of the day, and would Jon be working from home on that? Jon sighed and drank three glasses of water standing over his sink. Then he went through a shortened version of his morning routine and took a weirdly empty Tube ride to the Institute.

“Jonathan Sims, late to work,” Tim called from his desk when Jon walked in. “Truly, this is a sign of the end-times.”

“I’ve been working since four, Tim,” Jon said.

Tim’s eyebrows rose. “Insomnia?”

“A research emergency.”

Tim started laughing. “Emergency?”

“Urgent, apparently.”

“Better you than me,” Nate called from his desk. “I turn my phone off at night for a reason.”

“Bad luck, Jon,” Sasha said sympathetically. 

Tim gave her a look of betrayal. “You _believe_ him?”

Sasha shrugged. “Jason told me to stick with my caseload for Gertrude—he doesn’t want her coming back too the Institute too soon, I guess—but yeah, there was a late-night research emergency.”

“Really? First I heard of it,” Tim said.

“There’s probably a reason for that,” Jon said, a little louder and meaner than he’d wanted to.

Tim glared for a moment, then it melted into a smirk. “Well, at least I got my eight hours. Beauty sleep is important.”

“Hmm.” Jon sat down at his desk and dragged the first casefile over. He stared at the picture clipped to the front of the file. He closed it. “Sasha?”

“Yes, Jon?”

“Did you give me these statements?”

“Yes?”

“The, ah. Mugs? That have tongues for handles?”

“Oh.” Sasha sounded deeply disgusted as she said, “Artifact Storage has samples. Apparently the artist was eager to part with them.”

“…Right.” Jon breathed deeply. 

“You were the only one who wasn’t here to refuse it,” Tim said. “Sorry, mate.”

Jon nodded slowly. “I think… I need tea before I deal with this.”

“Yeah, you won’t want to touch a mug handle after those,” Tim said.

“Here, Jon.” Sasha pulled three files from the top of his stack. “You get tea, talk with Storage, and I’ll take these for you.”

Jon looked at her solemnly, waiting until she came into somewhat better focus—he was too tired to see her clearly. He said, “Thank you, Sasha.”

“Good lord,” Tim muttered behind him.

Jon left. He got tea. He drank it standing at the counter, staring at the wall. Then he went down into Storage and got Gilpin to show him some of the worst mugs he’d ever seen or handled. Gilpin informed him that he looked like shit. Jon told them that he felt pretty bad. They patted him on the shoulder, then backed up and apologized when Jon twitched violently. 

Jon left, burning with shame and frustration. He didn’t know any of these people well enough to feel comfortable with them touching him. Tim got away with it sometimes because he was Timothy Stoker and determined and a little handsy with everyone; Chae-won could give him a taunting shoulder nudge every now and then; Sasha had taken to offering to pop his back with one of her massively strong hugs when he was particularly hunched. That was all he would allow. And that was _fine_ , it was _normal_ to maintain a respectful distance from your coworkers.

Jon typed up his experience with the mugs, the alleged creation materials (they didn’t feel like ceramics), the artist’s statement, and the maker’s contact information. He also typed up the statement, which took him several hours to parse from the loopy handwriting across eight pages. He printed it all out and sat back in his chair, feeling his vertebrae grinding. 

“Jon?”

Jon closed his dry, aching eyes. “Yes, Katie?”

“Jason wants to see you.”

“Mm, right. Just a second.” He took a deep breath. “I have a statement for Gertrude. Mugs. Mouth mugs. All typed up.”

“Gotcha. That’s great, but Jason’s waiting for you. Right now.”

Jon opened his eyes. “Right. Right.” He dragged himself out of the chair and remembered to take his reading glasses off before he bumped into anything important.

Jason gestured for Jon to sit down as he came in. He looked serious and calm as ever, but the lines around his mouth were deep and he blinked slowly. “Thanks, Jon. You did some really stellar, last-minute work this morning. I’m sorry for the short notice.”

“That’s fine, it’s no trouble. It sounded important.”

“It was.” Jason was frowning. “Unfortunately, we’ve been asked to leave it alone. The Institute, I mean. Gertrude has been informed and. Well. She wasn’t happy.”

“Oh, lord,” Jon said. “Did she… complain to you?”

“No, no,” Jason said. “Elias let her know we’ve been asked to, ah, not interfere. I believe those were the words used. Still, I appreciate the work you put into my vague research request, and—“

“Was this about the woman infested with worms?” Jon asked.

Jason’s mouth stuck open for a second, then closed with a click. “Ah. Yes. It’s in the news already?”

“One rather frantic personal blog entry that was deleted within three hours,” Jon said. “A night nurse. It wasn’t up long, nor was it very coherent, but it was, ah, emphatic.”

“Yes,” Jason said slowly. “We’ve been asked not to look into it further. The police have a section assigned to cases like this that will be addressing the problem.”

“I see,” Jon said. “So she’s… still out there?”

Jason looked at him solemnly. “Don’t worry about it, Jon. Take the rest of the day off. Actually—“ Jason checked the little clock on his desk and smiled a little “—it’s so close to quitting time, how about you take tomorrow off?”

“It’s past six?” Jon said, craning to see the time.

Jason blinked. “Nearly five. Do you stay past six?”

“O-oh. On occasion?”

“Go home, Jon. Take a rest day, you’ve had quite a time. I’ll see you Wednesday.”

Jon was on the train when he realized this was a police cover-up. He reflected on why the police wouldn’t want news of a worm-woman to get out into the world. That train of thought lasted him up the stairs to his apartment, through the process of reheating laal maans and consuming it rapidly, and then he pulled his laptop out of his bag and stared at it. 

He was supposed to take a day off. He’d technically worked twelve hours today. Jason had said that the Institute wasn’t going to be investigating this particular case anymore.

Jon opened his laptop and typed in his password. He considered searching for ‘worm woman’ or ‘worm deaths in London hospitals,’ but his fingers just rested lightly on the keys. After a moment, he typed in the first few letters of a search that autofilled immediately: ’strange event phenomenon +book’ He started scrolling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Boolean searching is important.


	9. October 2014

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Institute re-brand and discussion of facial hair.

“Happy Monday, every— Is that a beard, Jon?” Tim leaned across Sasha’s desk to get a better look. She cleared her throat meaningfully.

Jon glared at Tim. “Get off Sasha’s desk. I forgot to pick up a new razor this weekend.”

“Two days? That’s a _two day_ beard? It’s absolutely magnificent.”

“Four days,” Jon said.

“Still, amazing stuff. How long can you grow it?” Tim asked. Sasha started stacking case folders on his shoulders.

Jon narrowed his eyes, suspicious about the motivation behind such a question. “I, I don’t know. This is more than I usually let it grow.”

“What the _hell_?” Tim sputtered. The case folders slid off his back and Sasha huffed her annoyance again, but Tim dragged himself even closer to Jon, folding himself over the desk in a _highly_ inappropriate display. Sasha covered her face. Tim said, “Please, Jon, you have to see this through.”

“I’m not growing a beard to satisfy your curiosity, Tim. Get _off_ the desk.”

“Thank you, Jon,” Sasha said from behind the screen of her hands.

Tim cocked his head, ignoring Sasha. “What if I grow a beard with you?”

“Why would that make the request more appealing?”

“Solidarity?” Tim suggested.

“He can’t grow a beard,” Sasha added between her fingers. “It’s patchy. Peach fuzz.”

“That too,” Tim admitted, grinning. “Mustache never really appears, and it doesn’t fill in above this incredibly rugged jawline.” He raised himself up on his palms, still pressed against Sasha’s workspace, and called, “Nate, d’you want to grow a beard for research purposes?”

“Is it for a statement?” Nate asked without looking around. He was digging through one of the boxes that had been piled around his desk for him to start sorting through. The bin of ‘Unlabelled’ statement recording tapes far outweighed the ‘Labelled’ bin already.

“No,” Jon said. “Tim just wants me to grow a beard.”

“You can?” Nate asked, spinning his chair to face them. He scrubbed at his own chin and sighed wistfully. “Stella’d love that. I didn’t know the Institute dress code allowed facial hair.”

Sasha finally dragged Tim off her desk by the back of his brightly-patterned, Halloween-themed shirt (still a week early, but he insisted that their workplace needed to celebrate it all month) and opened her laptop. “I’ll check the employee handbook,” she said.

“Why wouldn’t they allow beards?” Jon asked, confused. “I can think of multiple people in— Oh.”

‘What?” Tim asked. “Is there a beard conspiracy I don’t know about?”

Jon rolled his eyes. “No, Tim. It was Artifact Storage. Gilpin and Vihaan both have had beards. But that’s Storage. I can’t think of anywhere else in the Institute where employees have facial hair, apart from the research interns and Storage staff.”

“Different rules,” Sasha agreed absently. She ran her finger down her computer screen, lips moving as her eyes darted back and forth. “Looks like there’s a line in here about neat physical grooming, which is a general enough turn of phrase that someone could exploit it to tell Chae-won to shave her legs—“

“Not happening,” Chae-won called from her desk. “And stop talking about this, it’s asinine.”

“Word for the vocab jar,” Tim called back. “It’d almost be one for the hypothetical swear jar, unless you change it to ‘arsenine.’”

“Oh, fuck off,” Chae-won said, but she was laughing. It was hard not to laugh at Tim Stoker. Even Jon found himself suppressing a smile every now and then.

Tim had instituted a ‘vocab jar’ after he’d heard a few too many polysyllabic words from Chae-won and Jon. “You must be stopped,” he’d insisted. “If you can’t limit yourselves to plain language for these _accessible reports_ that are read by the _Head Archivist herself_ , then I’m at least getting a pizza out of it.”

They were well on their way to a department-wide pizza party after just a couple of weeks with the jar.

“Everyone?” Katie clapped like a schoolteacher as she entered the Research bullpen, and their heads turned towards her. She smiled at them, a tired twist at the edge of her mouth. “You all get Elias’ email?”

“Which one?” they all chorused in varying degrees of sarcastic, annoyed, and facetiously chipper. 

It was Thursday morning—they had all shut their emails down yesterday afternoon to avoid the barrage of replies and meeting invitations from the Head of the Institute. After two years at the Institute, Jon now deeply understood what Sasha had meant when she’d talked about Elias’ calendar obsession (Tim called it a fetish), which always popped up late on Wednesdays. He probably scheduled his own scheduling session for that afternoon. The only way to avoid repeated email pings per minute was to give up on emailing after lunch on Wednesday and dig yourself out of the email inbox stuffed with calendar invites on Thursday morning.

“It went out this morning,” Katie told them. “Got a new branding campaign from Fundraising and Development. They want feedback from Research if it sounds like what we want to ask them for. Well,” she added as the Research team scattered to their desks to check email, “technically they wanted the Archive to weigh in, but Gertrude’s out _again_ , so we’re the next best thing.”

“It’s so strange to have a department of one,” Jon said, mostly to himself as he pulled up his email and started checking subject lines.

“Gertrude has her preferences,” Katie said. “She did have some kind of helper here last time she was in, actually. I may have to talk to Elias about getting him a volunteer badge if he shows up again—Meaghan was a bit concerned letting him in until Gertrude insisted he was here to carry some of her materials out to the cab.” Katie’s voice grew a disapproving. “He was one of those _goths_. He opened an umbrella to cover the boxes and I swear this place is getting to me, I thought he was turning into a _bat_ or something. He has to be over thirty but he dressed like my youngest nephew, Cyrus, who’s been into all that heavy metal stuff lately—“

“Oh, this is good,” Tim interrupted, scanning the email. “The font’s a bit messy and I’d want to check on colors for print versus screen ads, but I like the motto. ‘Make your statement. Face your fear.’ That’s _snappy_.”

“Yeah, Rosie’s chuffed,” Katie said. “Not that she came up with it, but she built the ads.”

“I’m gonna shoot her an email about kerning,” Tim said. 

Katie raised her eyebrows. “Sure, Tim. Whatever that means.”

“A background in publishing means I picked up a decent amount of graphic design,” Tim said, sounding comically pompous. He got up to snag Sasha’s glasses off her face and settled them low on his nose. “Imagine I have more cool tattoos than the ones I already have. Like, all the way up my arms. And also imagine I can grow an impressive beard, like Jon.” He began narrating his email in posh tones as he typed it up with great flourish. At regular intervals, he paused to stroke an invisible beard. 

The whole research office was amused. Chae-won threw out a few long, fancy word suggestions. Nate was recommending different sans-serif fonts. 

“Keep it down,” Sasha laughed, squinting at Jon with an expression that suggested she saw the two of them in solidarity against this silliness.

Jon sighed deeply and rested his chin in his hand, feeling the drag of stubble against his palm. While his coworkers were kinder here than his last place of employment, the liveliness was not always appreciated. He wished he could have his own office, sometimes. He turned his eyes back to his own computer and started populating his calendar with the meetings and deadlines that Elias had approved. His yearly review was coming up soon. There wasn’t news on when Gertrude would be returning to the office—probably not until after Guy Fawkes night, at this rate.

Jon’s mind wandered a bit, tuning back into the proofreading stage of Tim’s email. Everyone in Research was weighing in on the campaign now. Sasha had reclaimed her glasses and had her chin on Tim’s head, pointing at something on the screen. Jon smoothed down part of his mustache with a thumb. It hadn’t occurred to him that growing facial hair quickly was an impressive feat. Maybe he would relax a bit about shaving every morning. Especially if it made Tim annoyed. He pressed down on his creeping smile with a few fingers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gerry! My favorite side character! I adore him, I still think about doing a fic about him and Gertrude wandering around disrupting shit. Katie thinking Gerry’s turning into a bat when he opens an umbrella is from a tweet by @only3brannans that I saw floating around and immediately wheezed over.


	10. December 2014

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A gala.

Tim sipped his wine carefully and kept his shoulder pressed against Sasha’s arm as he looked around the room. There was a clog of people around the dessert’s table, which was a fair place to be when people like Tom and Chae-won and Diana had made homemade treats. He’d already taken six of Chae-won’s cookies and tried to propose to her and her wife again. Ellie was a good sport about it, but Chae-won had reminded him that she knew where his desk was and she could fill it with snakes if he wasn’t careful. This was, Tim felt, not a particularly creative pest to add to his desk, but he’d acted sufficiently chastened and retreated to Sasha. She loomed tall and wonderful in an ankle-length emerald gown that looked like Monet had watercolored blue flowers all over it. Tim couldn’t stop touching the folds of it; it was made of a material that Sasha assured him was cheaper than silk but it still felt fantastically smooth.

“Oh,” Sasha whispered, low and excited. Her braid swatted his arm as she turned her head. “Gertrude’s here!”

Tim popped up on his toes, trying to see over the crowd; he was a few inches shorter than Sasha in her heels. “Where?”

“She’s— Oh, lord, Elias got her.”

“She _hates_ Elias, though.”

“Absolutely,” Sasha murmured, stooping a bit to keep her gossip for his ears only. He felt her breath on his neck and licked his lips at a memory, but she’d made it clear that it had been a one-time thing and he enjoyed being her favorite colleague/friend now. Sasha told him, “She’s worked here longer than he has. Elias basically lets her do whatever she wants because she has some kind of tenure. I don’t know any specifics, of course, but her travel and postage budgets take a _lot_ of the Institute’s funding.”

“I bet that's why Jason's taking an early retirement,” Tim said. "The injustice of it all." He caught sight of the Head Archivist scowling at the Head of the Magnus Institute. Elias, of course, was smiling. Gertrude was a smallish old lady, wrinkled and prim in a navy pantsuit, her hair pulled back clumsily with a few clips that couldn’t quite contain the halo of grey. 

She was also sporting a black eye that had faded to a nasty yellow, and he saw a black wrist brace on one arm.

“Did she fall?” Tim asked.

“I think it happened in the field,” Sasha said. “She had a helper with her when she left on her last trip but she said he moved on rather suddenly. She came back alone. I think she was trying to get out of the gala, actually, but then Elias said she was healing well at that staff meeting so she had to make an appearance.”

“He’s really manipulative, huh?”

“Definitely. Ah, shit, there’s Jon!”

Tim winced as he caught sight of their coworker. “Poor guy. He looks so awkward.” Jon was wearing a cleaner version of what he wore to work every day, shoes polished up, and he was sporting a recently-grown mustache that he couldn’t stop scratching. “You want to stage a rescue?”

Sasha linked her arm with Tim’s. “We’d better.” She led them through the press of people, gliding past donors and academics and Hannah (she waved, her other hand tucked in her husband’s) in a flirty cocktail dress. They split to take positions on either side of Jon, each resting an elbow on one of his shoulders.

“Heya, Jon,” Tim said.

“Get _off_ ,” Jon said stuffily.

They straightened up in unions and Tim asked, “Did you miss us?”

“I saw you four hours ago, I need more of a break,” Jon said. He glanced at Sasha and said, “You look nice.”

“So do you,” Sasha said.

“And I look incredible,” Tim said.

Jon rolled his eyes. “You’re your own biggest fan, Tim. I don’t have to give you compliments, you assume they’re all for you anyway.”

“True!”

“Did you see Gertrude?” Sasha asked.

“Yes.” Jon frowned a bit. “Should she be here? She looks a bit under the weather.”

“Chasing down monsters in America, last I heard,” Sasha said.

“What, like werewolves and mothmen and aliens?” Tim asked, intrigued. “Would she tell us stories, do you think?”

“ _No_ ,” Sasha and Jon said at the same time.

“I’ve spoken with her maybe three times and she is not inclined to share stories,” Jon said.

“Well, at least not stories about herself,” Sasha added.

“Sasha, as always, has a wonderful way of talking to people who hate other people,” Jon said, smiling at her. Tim was delighted to discover that Jon had _dimples_ of all things. No wonder he glared all the time—he was adorable when he didn’t, and Jon clearly had ideas about maintaining personal dignity.

“Well, since we’re stuck here till the stiffs empty out, do you want to help us judge people richer than we are?” Tim asked.

“Rosie wanted us to ‘mingle,’” Jon said, almost spitting the word out.

“I’m mingling,” Tim said. “Here I am, mingling with Sasha James and Jonathan Sims, two of the classiest people at this party. Now, who here spent the most on their shoes?”

Jon didn’t join in on the ribbing or gossiping. He watched where they pointed and huffed a few times in quiet, appreciative laughter, but that was all. He stayed by them, though, and helpfully pointed out when Elias was making a circuit of the room so they could get more wine and avoid the boss’ boss.

“Afterparty?” Tim suggested when the room had begun to empty.

“Shawarma?” Sasha asked, hope in her voice. “Once I change out of these bloody shoes.”

“Sasha, I saw you put away a pile of hors d'oeuvres. How can you still want shawarma?”

“I’ll split it. Jon, you could use a meal, yeah?”

“Ah.” Jon looked like he was considering it. “I should— That is, we have work tomorrow.”

“We can be a bit late,” Tim said. “They’d be understanding. We’re at this damn gala, after all.”

“Nothing we did tonight constitutes work,” Jon said. “We stood around and drank wine and had chats. Not even with trustees, just each other.”

Tim stared at Jon until the man gave him his full, puzzled attention, then said in a low, serious voice, “I had to spend an evening without swearing, watching telly, or meeting up with mates—no offense, you’re both beautiful. This counts as work.”

“The window of my patience is closing,” Sasha said, bumping elbows with Tim. “Jon, you coming? I have trainers under my desk but I’ll be back in a mo’.” She rushed off, the click of her heels echoing down the hall.

“Come on, Jon, it’s barely past ten,” Tim said. “We’ll have you in bed before midnight. Earlier, if you’re lucky.” He winked.

Jon’s eyes narrowed.

“It’s teasing,” Tim said quickly. “I’ll not attack your virtue, I promise.”

“Right. I don’t appreciate that sort of thing,” Jon said. His voice was slow, precise, and exceptionally posh.

“From guys?” Tim asked.

Jon’s dark glower shifted to surprise. “Oh! No, from anyone. Especially people I work with. I, I don’t find it amusing.”

“All right, fair enough. But will you come get post-gala, Sasha-funded food with us, as friends?”

Jon’s face went blank. It was a degree of amazement that Tim had never seen on his coworker before. His brown eyes met Tim’s and Tim gave him an easy smile, raised his eyebrows to make it a question and an invitation.

Jon’s mouth worked like he was literally chewing the idea over. Then he said, “I suppose… the hors d'oeuvres left something to be desired in the way of substance.”

Tim beamed. “Ah, Jon, god love you and your reluctant attitude. Hug?”

Jon flinched but then extended an arm and gave Tim’s shoulder a few gentle pats. “No, thank you. That jacket looks itchy.”

“It _is_ ,” Tim agreed, turning to allow Jon to admire it. “I got it from my granddad.”

“Blue plaid is… bold.”

"Thanks!"

“All right, lads,” Sasha declared, striding up to them with her heels dangling from her fingertips, a parka zipped tight over her flowing gown, and sneakers laced up over her ankles. “Where’s the nearest takeaway?”

“Three blocks,” Jon said immediately.

“Two,” Tim corrected.

“Three blocks to the _better_ takeaway,” Jon amended.

“I think we can treat ourselves,” Sasha said. “Or rather, I can treat you both. I want lamb, veg, and a side of chips, so what’s say we split it?”

“Perfect,” Tim said, claiming Sasha’s arm. He extended his own elbow to Jon and waggled it. “Join the train?”

Jon’s mouth was twisting again, but Tim could tell by the crinkle around his eyes that he was suppressing a smile this time. “Very well.”

“To food and friendship!” Tim declared proudly. The deep shadows of the Magnus Institute ate his voice, deadening the echoes that should have spread from such a cry, but he was already steering his coworkers out the door, Sasha laughing and Jon stiffly gripping his elbow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have feelings! About the archive folks being almost-friends! And Jon failing to come out to coworkers, as I always fail to do because I have strong workplace boundaries, too! A goal for myself in the future is to work somewhere I feel comfortable enough to bring my 'space ace' mug and use it regularly.
> 
> Pour one out to the loss of Gerry, it's a sneaky side-note here.


	11. July 2015

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon's the Archivist now, uh oh! He did not make friends along the way!

It wasn’t entirely clear who had started the ‘Audio Effed’ bin. The cardboard box had been set on Jon’s office chair when he got in one morning, just a week into his new job. It read ‘Audio Fucked’ on the side, but someone had scribbled over the ‘ucked.’ Since it had taken two days for Sasha to give up on trying to scrub the audio from the first unusual, software-wrecking statement, any statement that couldn’t be cleanly recorded by the audio software was now quickly set aside, and now they were piled in the box. Jon had asked Rosie about it and she’d said that Gertrude handled recordings and hadn’t had any trouble.

“Tim said there was a tape recorder?” Jon asked.

“Yes,” Rosie had said, a hint of disdain in her voice. “There is. Somewhere.”

“Oh, he, he found it for me, I just, ah. Wanted to make sure it was a good use of my time.”

Rosie had given him a pitying look. “Mr. Bouchard thinks it’s important to have these statements recorded in an audio medium for accessibility and data redundancy and security.”

“… Right,” Jon said. It still seemed like a strange use of his time, but Gertrude had recorded tapes as well, and Jon wasn’t quite sure what else to do as Head Archivist except build and improve upon her work. 

This was made more difficult when his research team didn’t respect the importance of what he was doing. Each assistant Jon asked about the ‘Audio Effed’ box had insisted they were not the culprit. Tim smiled all the time, so it wasn’t clear when he was taking the piss; Martin was always red-faced and nervous ever since the dog incident; and Sasha had been busy with something when Jon tried to interrogate her. 

She’d waved him away as she typed up a Storage search request to Sonja. “I don’t have time right now, Jon, sort it yourself,” she’d said. “You have to record them all, anyway. Elias said so.”

“What? I do? When did he say that?”

“During our briefing,” Sasha said. “I think you were reading the privacy statement at the time. Or something else in that massive packet he gave you.”

“…Right,” Jon had said. Sasha wasn’t looking at him. She always seemed to be busy now, too busy to chat (unless it was with Tim or Martin). She still was kind to him, because she was a kind person, but everyone on the Research team had known who would have made a better Head Archivist. If Jon had known when Elias asked him up to his office… Well. He hadn’t thought much beyond the swelling pride, and then he’d gone home and reflected on the fact that he didn’t know how to archive. He also had never had a full conversation with Gertrude. He had no idea what she had been doing, and he had no idea what he was doing. 

He did, however, have a rudely-titled cardboard box of tapes now. And a tape recorder.

Jon shut the door to his office and glared at the bin. There were crackling paper statements that had been printed from emails, handwritten on legal pads, folded into envelopes… a couple had sticky notes with appointment times listed on them in faded ink. They’d all been typed up if they were handwritten, for ease of reading. Each had a cover page neatly paperclipped to it with the follow-up notes for inclusion in the audio recording. 

The Head Archivist had to deal with most of the audio recordings, as the boss was the one with the somewhat-soundproof office. Tim had pointed this out with a grin. Martin had, predictably, offered to help without actually possessing the skill set needed to take on such a workload. 

Jon still found it annoying to have a cardboard box declaring the failure of technology and one small, perpetual mystery. He tugged an email printout out of the box and glared at it. He rubbed his forehead, settled his reading glasses on his nose, and began to read.

Time felt slippery when reading. Jon had a small desk clock but it often paused at intervals during the day, minute-hand shuddering faintly. The timer on his mobile was more reliable but it was unprofessional to have it out during work hours, even behind the closed door of his office. He had to set an example, especially for Tim, who was always leering at his phone screen when he should be researching. Not that setting an example had a noticeable effect; Jon had cleared his throat pointedly a few times while Tim was texting, and all that had happened was Martin had offered a throat lozenge.

This meant Jon lost track of time frequently. It was a bad habit he’d held over from his youth. Reading was an all-consuming activity for him. Given a novel, he could lose an entire afternoon and not realize until the light faded enough to give him eyestrain. Reading aloud was more easily interrupted, as Jon couldn’t fight that stab of self-consciousness when someone barged into his office and he was abruptly made conscious of how he’d dropped his voice to capture a bit of the terror one of the subjects had expressed in their statement. A few semesters of AmDram in university had left their mark as he got sucked into performing a well-written tale.

It was actually a pleasant surprise how the statements in the Audio Effed bin were so coherent. The detail was incredible. Every person who had given a statement that the Institute had been unable to commit to the digital recording software was a very clear, eloquent storyteller. Though some stories were absolute nonsense, almost stream-of-consciousness poems, they were well-remembered and tightly constructed. Even meandering details fed into the overall mood or monster. 

Jon clicked the ‘stop’ button on the recorder, ejected the tape, and carefully entered the correct case number into the office label maker. He printed out another label with the statement-giver’s first initial and last name, and the date the statement was given, and attached those to the tape as well. He did it all over again for the tape case and then stuck the sticky note with keywords that someone (the handwriting suggested it was Sasha) had identified. And that was another strange statement recorded, done, and to be filed in a box that was NOT marked with a swear.

Jon stuck his head out of the office and cast a quick eye over the people in the room, who had been his coworkers until his recent promotion. Three mismatched desks and creaky chairs were crammed into whatever space wasn’t occupied by shelving units, document boxes, or teetering stacks of files. Of the three people who should be working here today, one was missing. Jon cleared his throat and asked, “Martin?”

“He’s following up on that case you set him on, the weird lightning book,” Tim called from his desk.

“Which Leitner?” Jon said, then remembered. “Oh, yes, _Ex Altiora_. Sasha, could you actually look into that as well?”

“What about it?” she said.

“Just, ah, double-check if it exists as a real book or not.”

She raised her eyebrows. “But it’s a Leitner, Jon. That’s one of the few things you do always believe.”

“I want to confirm that it doesn’t exist in some other, non-Leitner format,” Jon said, a little annoyed. “And I bring healthy skepticism to the workplace. It’s hardly unprecedented. We need to do our due diligence to determine which of these heaps of statements are actually worth investigating further. How else will the Magnus Institute be taken seriously?”

“The unsubstantiated pile grows ever taller,” Tim said cheerfully. He waved at a towering stack of file boxes, waiting for someone to plop them in the ‘Discredited’ section of the Archive that Jon had designated during his first week on the job, because where else was he supposed to put the typewritten sheet of paper that read ‘Gladstone tried to snog me behind the skip outside the McDonald’s’? Why had someone felt the need to submit such a thing to the Institute in 1978? Who had _kept_ it? Martin was tasked with document digitizing duty whenever he had a spare moment, and Jon almost felt bad about the fact that such a task was going to take him years to complete. It did keep him busy, though. 

Jon said, “Well, when Martin returns, could you have him file this?” He waved the completed tape.

“Why’s he always in charge of filing?” Sasha asked.

“He came from the Library, he knows how to put things away in their proper place.”

“He’s a researcher, too, now,” Tim pointed out.

Jon looked between the two of them, disbelieving. “He’s _not_ , though.”

“He can learn,” Tim said, shrugging. A smile started to creep across his face. "He has a degree in parapsychology, after all."

Jon frowned. “I suppose you're right. Until he does build more research skills, though, he can be helpful in a way he’s actually qualified for. Besides, it’s best to have one person in charge of all the filing and labelling. It gets done consistently, this way. Gilpin does for Artifact Storage—”

“We have a cheat-sheet now, Jon,” Sasha said. She waved a piece of paper with Martin’s tidy handwriting sloping across the page.

“…Good initiative,” Jon admitted. He had to force the words out, but they were true.

Tim mimed shock and Sasha nodded meaningfully. “He’s doing his best. Give him a chance.”

“Right. Ah, but please check on that Leitner for me, would you, Sasha? It’s… important.”

Sasha sighed. “Will do, Jon.”

It had been almost painfully embarrassing for Jon to overhear, hours after he’d introduced himself to Martin like they were strangers, Tim explaining to Martin that Jon honestly didn’t mean anything by completely forgetting the other times they had met over the years—Jon just didn’t remember people very easily. Martin’s dismayed laughter had echoed down the hall as Jon tried desperately to recall any conversation with the nervous man with the dirty trainers, friendly smile, and curling ponytail. He couldn’t. It was very awkward. 

He was now doing his best to keep Martin busy and out of the office whenever possible, which wasn’t very subtle of him, but Jon certainly didn’t want to admit he had a shit memory for faces, names, and anyone he didn’t talk to on a semi-weekly basis. His habit of sneaking research materials into staff meetings and avoiding optional coworker events had resulted in Jon knowing the names and faces of the Research and Artifact Storage teams, the heads of each department, the head of the Institute, and the cleaning staff (though Nadine and her team weren’t particularly fond of how often they found him in the ‘closed’ building). Sometimes he saw people in the halls who were somewhat familiar and who greeted him by name; he would grunt a hello in return until they stopped trying to talk to him. He was here to work, after all.

Jon took a deep breath as he re-entered his office and shut the door. He debated recording another statement, but he was still in the midst of that strange, lingering headache and exhaustion that resembled a hangover. Best not to push it. He pushed the ‘Audio Effed’ bin to the side and hauled a file box that had been labelled ’89-93 R (fl? sl?)’, as if that meant anything. Jon pulled out the top sheaf of paper. It was stapled together, handwritten, with the marks of having been mailed in. It looked like a child’s handwriting, like a misfiled school report. Still, it had been sent in. Jon would skim it for obvious fakery, attempts at humor, inebriation or intoxication, or some kind of physical or mental distress that could cast doubt on the sender. Someone else would type it up. Someone else would look into it and send back notes. 

After Jon had made his choices for research assistants to help him (and also Martin), the Research division of the Institute had been… downsized. The Head Researcher leaving had been a blow, and then they’d lost three researchers. Their focus had been shifted to assisting the Library and Storage with acquisitions, authenticity verification, that sort of thing. “No need to interact with them, after that outburst,” Elias had told Jon around a thin smile.

Jon had heard Katie talking to Chae-won and Nate in low, furious tones after Jason had officially retired. The department had lost power. Once again, the Archives were the priority, and the rest of the Institute didn’t know why. Jon didn’t know why, either, but he was in charge of it now, and he certainly didn’t want to appear incompetent. If he couldn’t rely on Research to help him, so be it.

Jon settled down in his quiet office with his box of old documents and read, and made notes of what to follow up on, and read, and read.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gonna be braiding in with the canon now, writing some tangential scenes. I found a Magnus Archives Lost Scenes Bingo from dathan on tumblr and definitely am working to fill in a few of those, so it won't be totally Jon-centric. 
> 
> I give Martin every shitty job I ever had while I was temping, and some shitty jobs I still have to do because I work for small nonprofits. Office work needs to get done, even if it's just scanning a mountain of PDFs and adding search tags! More time to listen to spooky podcasts! Also I like [squeenytodd](https://squeeneyart.tumblr.com) and [turnipwine](https://turnipwine.tumblr.com)'s Martins the most right now (though all Martins are good Martins), so he gets a lil ponytail.
> 
> Someday maybe I'll write a fanfic that isn't character study/standalone scenes. Maybe someday I'll even write a plot. This fic isn't that day though.


	12. September 2015

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No canon staff members in this chapter, just a couple brutal complaints about the Magnus Institute's archive and building design from someone who's too qualified to take work here.

“This is _not_ a good archive,” said the one woman they’d managed to track down. It had taken some persistence and a promise of transportation reimbursement to get her to come in for an interview. She’d shown up in dirty jeans with holes in the knees and an ill-fitting jumper, glasses smudged and lipstick applied carelessly. Everything about her, from her crossed arms to her slouch when she sat down across from Meaghan, the Magnus Institute’s Head Administrator, indicated she was unimpressed.

“Welcome to the Magnus Institute, Benicia,” Meaghan said smoothly. “Thank you for coming in. We truly do some valuable work with investigating the unexplained and offering primary sources as well as fact-checked supplemental reports.”

“Sure,” said Benicia. “I see the signs on the tube. ‘Make your statement. Face your fear.’ Decent advert campaign.” She leaned further back in her chair. “Doesn’t mean you archive well.”

“How would _you_ arrange the Archive at the Magnus Institute?” Meaghan asked, clasping her hands on her desk.

“I’d find you another building,” Benicia snorted. She glanced around with scorn. “This is hardly inviting. Not particularly accessible either. It’s cramped but it still echoes somehow in here, and the dark wood and concrete and bad lighting isn’t doing you any favors. How old is this place?”

“Quite old,” Meaghan said, her tone clipped.

“At least you have computers. I half-expected microfiche and tape recorders.” Benicia’s eye landed on a cardboard box of cassette tapes against the wall. The box was clumsily labelled ‘82, 90, 87 teeth & hair.’ A different, even more crabbed hand had added ‘+ skin’ at a steep angle running down the side of the box. Benicia’s mouth twisted.

“We are working on some strategies for digitizing records,” Meaghan said. Her her eyes were half-lidded, fixed on Benicia. She was still smiling politely.

“How are you making them available to the public?” Benicia asked. “I didn’t see signs advertising your guys’ opening times.”

“We are open during regular office hours from 8am to 6pm on weekdays and 9am to 3pm on Saturdays. It’s on our website.”

“Is it?” Benicia said. “I did look you up, you know. After the fifth phone call begging me to come interview. Was that you?” Meaghan didn’t react. Benicia smirked and continued. “Your accessibility is shit. No image descriptors. Itty bitty links. Menus within menus. You don’t make it particularly easy to visit unless someone wants to give you something.”

“We are, first and foremost, dedicated to first-hand accounts and research—”

“Of ghosts and shit, yeah?”

“Of unexplained phenomena, experiences, and objects,” Meaghan said.

Benicia nodded. “Great. That’s not what I studied in uni, so.”

Meaghan leaned incrementally forward. For someone as controlled as she seemed, it was noticeable. She said, “We are encountering… difficulties with restructuring the archive system and are looking to hire someone with an eye for those sorts of details and possibilities. Your work at the Metropolitan Archives was exemplary, according to a former colleague, and—”

“Who?”

Meaghan blinked. “What?”

“Who told you I did a good job there? I _did_ do a good job, but I want to know who said so. Those guys were dickheads.”

Meaghan’s mouth moved like she was chewing on a lemon drop. “…Sims.”

Benicia laughed once. “You’re talking to Jonathan Sims?”

“He… recommended you, when asked.”

“Can’t believe he offered praise,” Benicia said. “Did you twist his arm?”

Meaghan looked up at her, no longer smiling. “No. We hired him four years ago as a research assistant and he was promoted to the position of Head Archivist. Recently, he has been suggesting that we hire someone else to redesign out statement archive practice.”

“God, it’s too little too late but I am surprised by how delicious it feels to know Jon got a gig he can’t handle and that he unbent enough to admit I do my job well.” Benicia took a deep, savoring kind of breath as she stood up. “I feel like I need a cigarette after a moment that stunning. No, Meaghan, sorry, I don’t want to work for you. And not because Jon is here—he didn’t affect my life that deeply. Hell, he was easier to work with than the rest of the assholes on that team. No, I like cleaning up messes, but I don’t think this one is a good use of my time. Please stop calling me.” She nodded affably and strode out the door.

“…Bollocks,” Meaghan grumbled. She slammed the keys on her computer and sent Jonathan bloody Sims a three sentence email: 

> _I spoke with your ex-colleague, Benicia. She made it clear she is not interested in the position. I must ask you to refrain from further inquiries into our hiring practices._

“And fuck off,” she said to her screen as she hit ‘send.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It would be such a rush to have the kind of power to be mean during a job interview you didn't even want to have. Unfathomable.


	13. January 2016

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aliens....

Martin rapped on Jon’s office door and waited. He tapped on it again. 

“You really gotta pound on it, Martin,” Tim advised from atop his ladder, stacking document boxes on the upper shelves as Sasha handed them up. “He’s dead to the world when he’s reading, you know that.”

Martin winced before his fist even tapped the wood, but he did make a louder knock.

“What?” Jon called.

Martin stuck his head in and pretended to not hear Jon’s heavy sigh. “Uh, Jon?”

The man was at his desk, three books from the Library open and propped against various empty mugs. He had a ragged notebook filled with his cramped, handwritten notes set in front of him and was tapping his pen against the page. He said, “ _Yes_ , Martin?”

“Rosie’s off on lunch but someone’s here to give a statement. Could you…?”

“Yes, yes.” Jon looked pissed, but he nearly always looked pissed. “Can you tell if it’ll be a tape-recorded one?”

“Um. He said it was aliens, so…”

“No,” Jon said. He’d been reaching for his desk drawer but now he turned to his laptop. “Right. Well. Let’s get this over with. Send—what’s their name?”

“His name is Alph. Uh, Alphons Schtein. He seems nice. He was telling me about his trip to the US to visit New Mexico and Nevada for—”

“Yes, wonderful,” Jon said, deeply sarcastic. “Send him in. But, ah, one thing?”

Martin turned back. “Yes, Jon?”

Jon had let his glasses fall off his nose to swing from their chain and was thumbing the space between his eyebrows like he was rubbing away a headache. “Come in after about half an hour and check on us. Say that I, I have a meeting with Elias or something. I don’t want a repeat of last month’s crop circle conspiracy.”

Martin nodded quickly because he could feel the smile fighting its way onto his face, and he knew Jon wouldn’t like that. Jon had been trapped, listening to a sweet-faced old lady named Ethel explain crop circles for three hours. He’d emerged absolutely furious. He was helpless in the face of older women, though. Martin had watched person after person leave the office in a huff, asking if there was a place to submit comment cards about ‘respectful demeanor’ or ‘remaining neutral.’ Jon could piss anyone off, but he couldn’t bring himself to stop old women who wanted to talk. Martin knew why, too. Jon didn’t remember the chat they’d had about hospitals and his grandmother, but Martin did.

After dropping Alph in Jon’s office, Martin went back to determining whether someone could literally haunt a groupchat, but he kept an ear on the interview and set a timer on his phone. It was hard to focus on the sounds of Alph talking; Tim and Sasha were muttering together and giggling as they finished filing discredited statements. Tim folded up the ladder as Sasha headed back to her desk.

“Sasha?” Martin called.

She came over. “Hm? Need your login again?”

“No, no, I fixed… that,” Martin said, trying not to blush. “Um. I was wondering, have you seen Jon’s interview style?”

“With people?” Sasha snorted. “Bloody awful.”

“No worse than you,” Tim said. “I swear, you two were all business. ‘Tell me your trauma, speak clearly, have you recently experienced a head trauma?’ No charm.”

“You just ask people to their faces if they’re a reliable source of information?” Martin said. “Sasha, that sounds really rude.”

“I’m better than Jon!” Sasha protested.

“You are so much better than Jon at so many things,” Tim agreed, patting her arm gently. “Navigating Storage requisitions without Vihaan printing out your emails for entertainment? Yes. Rocking a cardigan? Hell yes. Interviewing strangers who had a brush with the supernatural? No.”

Sasha gasped in exaggerated hurt and pressed a hand to her heart. “You’re dead to me, Timothy Stoker.”

Martin’s phone began to play a cheery tune. He slapped the timer’s alarm off and grabbed the nearest file, just to have a prop to fiddle with if he needed to look busy.

“Good on you, Martin,” Tim said cheerfully, giving his shoulder a squeeze. “Save our Jon!”

“He can’t even end an interview! _I_ can end an interview,” Sasha hissed at Tim.

“Yeah, by shaming a man nearly to tears.”

“He tried to ask for my number four times while giving a statement. I was in a bad mood.”

“I know, and I adore you for it.”

Martin fast-walked away from their banter and rapped lightly on Jon’s office door, then popped his head in. 

It was an incongruous picture. Alph was in a ragged flannel and overalls, winter coat still dripping on the coatrack by the office door, and Jon was watching, tie knotted tight against his throat. Most surprising, though, was that Jon’s expression wasn’t scowly. He was watching Alph with polite, attentive interest, elbows resting on his desk, utterly still. 

Alph was speaking, hands twisting around each other as he said, “…lights were, well, gone. Um. And that’s it, I guess. But I’ve been on the lookout ever since.”

“Statement ends,” Jon said, and all politeness vanished from his demeanor as he leaned back. His eyebrows drew together into a glare. He tapped a key on his laptop to halt the recording. “You left your information with Martin, Mr. Schtein?”

“Uh.” Alph glanced behind him to where Martin was standing in the doorway. “Y-yeah? Alph’s fine, by the—”

“Excellent. We shall be in touch with any follow-up.”

“Oh. Um. Cheers. Do… Could you tell me if anyone else ever, uh, reported on something like this?”

“Yes,” Jon said. “They have.”

“And you looked into it?”

“Yes. We did.”

Alph blinked at him. “…Well, did anything—?”

“The claims could not be substantiated,” Jon said. “As a representative for this research institution, I will say we have not seen any hard evidence for the existence of extraterrestrial life interacting with life on Earth. But you are not alone in your experience, Alph.”

“O-oh. I see.” Alph scrubbed a hand through his beard for a moment. “Well. Thanks for listening?”

“Thank you for sharing,” Jon said, tone bland enough that it sounded facetious. Martin winced, then took a step back as Jon’s attention fell on him. “Yes, Martin?”

“Uh, you— Sorry, you have a meeting with Mr. Bouchard in a few minutes?”

Jon looked back at his computer and began adding data tags to the recording. “Thank you. Could you show Alph out? And then I need to see your notes on Statement 0150409.”

“Ah, r-right. Will do. This way.”

“That was weird,” Alph said as Martin walked him to the Institute doors.

“Really? H-how so?” Martin asked, afraid Jon had left yet another bad impression. He was also a bit distracted by worrying that he wouldn’t be able to find his notes on the statement Jon had asked for, as he had no recollection of which statement corresponded to those numbers. If only Jon had said something like, ‘the one about the guy who stapled meat everywhere,’ or ‘the one with the guy who had a fear of spiders so intense, he wrote to us about being haunted by them’… 

“Just. I’ve never been much of a storyteller, but that was _clean_ ,” Alph was saying. “Like, I didn’t have to try and remember bits or nothing. And he didn’t ask me any questions, apart from at the beginning. It’s like I lived it all over again. Mind, it seemed a bit sillier this time around. Like I hadn’t considered all the angles on what mysterious lights could possibly be. But I remembered it so clear, that’s the weird part.” He glanced back over his shoulder like he was trying to get one last glimpse of Jon. “Guess he’s a good interviewer.”

“I suppose so,” Martin said, surprised to hear it. “Um. We have comment cards, if you…?”

Alph looked apologetic, which Martin recognized. He also recognized the ‘humoring them’ tone as Alph said, “Sure, I’ll take one.”

“You don’t have to,” Martin said quickly.

Alph shrugged and took one anyway, stuffing it in the pocket of his parka as he left the institute for the slowfalling snow.

Martin hovered, steeling himself to knock on Jon’s door again, but Jon called, “Come _in_ already,” so Martin went.

“I can see your shadow under the door,” Jon said. “You don’t have to just stand there, you can knock.”

“R-right,” Martin said. “Um. I did want to, uh. The case number? Of the statement I’m supposed to research?”

“Yes?”

“…What was it again?”

Jon sighed deeply and rattled the numbers off again. “0150409.”

“Ah. Right. And, and which one was that? Like, the content?”

Jon sounded like he was gritting his teeth for a moment, but he said, “It’s the statement of Carlos Vittery, regarding his arachnophobia and its manifestations. I asked you to follow up to confirm he lived at the address he gave.”

“Oh, right. Yes! I, I started that.”

Jon’s eyes narrowed. “But?”

“I’m working on it,” Martin assured him quickly. “It’s just, well, no one seemed to want to talk about it on Friday. You know, weekend, all that. They also were kind of worried I was asking about the history of the place. I may try to, um, maybe pretend to be someone else?”

“Whatever it takes to get the information, it is appreciated,” Jon said. “And it’s necessary for the purposes of our work.”

“Is that why Tim’s allowed to take the petty cash when he goes asking ‘round the coroner’s office?”

Jon’s mouth twisted. He said, “Tim’s tactics are… effective, though I don’t approve completely of his use of the Institute’s time and funding.”

“So… sort of, it’s allowed?” Martin said.

“Are you going to ask the realtor out to coffee and flirting to get them to tell you if a man claiming to be haunted by spiders lived in the place before you did?”

Martin swallowed hard and let out a nervous giggle that did not affect how coldly Jon was glaring at him. “Probably not.”

“Probably?” Jon said.

“…No. I wouldn’t.”

“Right. And, to be honest, I’d imagine it’s mostly difficult to determine if he lived there because he died there.”

Martin stiffened. “Sorry, what?”

Jon’s attention was drifting to his notes. “Hm? Mr. Vittery passed away in his apartment. In 2015, actually. So they wouldn’t be inclined to tell you. It doesn’t do much for the resale value of the place. Do your best, though.”

“He’s dead? What of?”

Jon’s dark eyebrows lowered. “It’s… unclear. It was a week before he was found.”

“Oh, god. That’s _horrible_.”

“Yes, it’s a pity. Follow-up would have been helpful to have. It’s a bit… well. There should have been some way to indicate his concerns were time-sensitive. The first read-through sounds quite urgent. It’s too bad no one got around to following up immediately. I hope to have a bit quicker turnaround someday soon. Finding statements from the aughts in here is disheartening.”

Martin stared, mouth open a little. He closed it when Jon looked at him with a raised eyebrow, then opened his mouth again to say, “That’s. Yeah, that would be nice. Um. Would we have to do the folllow-up?”

Jon shrugged and turned back to his notes. “Just a thought for the future. A goal for the Archives, I suppose. Could you look into Statement 9991006 next? I need you to track down a man named Sebastian Adekoya for a follow-up, once you confirm that Mr. Vittery lived at that location at the time he said he did.”

“Right,” Martin said. He left Jon’s office and shut the door gently behind him, then sat at his desk and stared at the mountains of depressing, horrifying, terrifying stories from frightened people. A lot of them were dead. It was just hard to wrap his mind around the fact of their deaths, and if it had been preventable with quicker follow-up.

“You okay, Martin?” Tim asked. “Did Jon bollock you again?”

Martin felt himself blush as he said, “No, uh. Just more assignments.”

“Lot of those, recently,” Tim said sympathetically. “You look, and I mean this as kindly as possible, like you’re going to throw up or cry right now.”

“Oh. Um.” Martin scrubbed a hand over his face, shoving his glasses up onto his head. “You know the statement about the ghost spider?”

Tim let out one of his snort-laughs. “Yeah? That one went on the spooky bingo sheet as a new kind of ghost. I’m close to winning the pool this month.” He looked fondly at the battered Archive bulletin board hanging over Sasha’s desk.

“Yeah, uh. The guy, Carlos, he _died_ , Tim.”

“Ahhh.” Tim got more solemn and hitched his hip up on Martin’s desk and leaned over him in a slightly intimidating, slightly protective way. “This isn’t the first statement-giver who we found out passed away, though. What’s really eating you? Any spider-related trauma in your past?”

“No, I… I’m not sleeping well,” Martin admitted. It felt good to tell someone, so he kept going. “I had to… put her in hospice. My mum.” Tim sucked in a breath but Martin kept his eyes on his desk and said, “I helped her move out a week ago and the apartment’s just kind of… really empty now. It’s a bit scary when I go home from researching severe burn victims or looking into horrible suicides or being interrogated about that time an old homeless man who said he was a vampire hunter died on the breakroom couch. But I can’t exactly move out right now. I can’t afford to break the lease.” He looked up with a sheepish smile. 

Tim was frowning at him, pity etched on his round, handsome face where a smile usually lived. “That’s pretty bad, Martin.”

“I’ll manage,” Martin said automatically. He looked away from Tim’s sympathy, fiddling with a few paperclips. 

Tim’s hand rested on his shoulder. “Here, what about we go for a drink after work?”

“What? Tim, it’s _Tuesday_.”

“We can bring Sasha. She’s a calming influence.” Tim grinned wide and crooked, always a precursor to something that was going to make Martin laugh or blush or both. Martin braced himself. Tim said, “Maybe you won’t have to be alone in that apartment tonight. Eh?” 

“ _Tim_!”

Sasha whipped around, her braid flying. ”Tim, are you bothering Martin again?”

Tim was busy laughing and Martin was doing his best not to laugh with him, but Tim’s laugh invited everyone to join in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wonder about statements regarding alien encounters! No alien statements in canon, I guess they're not Fear-related enough, so I made them a fake statement that can be recorded by more high-tech means. I also wonder what statement-givers see when Jon is interviewing. Active listening is probably the best face to present, especially when Eye-powers mean you don't have to engage with them to get them to keep talking.
> 
> I deeply enjoy [Jaya’s](https://tolbyccian.tumblr.com/) Sasha. More cardigan than woman. 
> 
> I think of Tim Stoker as a little bit in love with everyone and always, always down to flirt if the other person will blush about it.


	14. April 2016

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim, Sasha, and Jon react to Martin living in the Archives.

Elias smiled around the room, as he always did during the bi-monthly all-staff meetings. Tim nudged Sasha and caught her eye to mime self-strangulation. She maintained an excellent pokerface, if you didn’t catch the quiver at the edges of her mouth. Martin hid his giggle behind his hand, scrubbing at the scruff developing on his cheeks. To increase the drama, Tim rolled his eyes back into his head. Sasha dug her nails into his knee. She didn’t need to bother; no one was looking at the Archives crew. 

All Institute staff were seated in the slightly-too-small chairs with little attached desks. They were arranged to face the row of less-small-but-squeakier chairs that held each of the department heads. Jon was sitting ramrod straight, hands pressed to his knees, staring into the middle distance. He looked like he was facing a firing squad with good British stoicism. On his left, Sonja from Artifact Storage was crocheting something small and lumpy. Diane from the Library was watching the item develop with interest. To Jon’s right, Yonnik from Fundraising was peeling at the skin around his nails. There were two empty chairs—one for Elias, who never really sat down during these meetings, and one for Rosie, who was delivering her monthly update from Administration.

“…so remember your away messages,” she finished. She started to turn back to her seat, but paused as she caught sight of Jon. Tim saw her mouth purse disapprovingly. She turned back to the assembled Institute staff. “I would like to extend a final reminder about the cleaning crew’s duties and hours,” Rosie said. “They come in at nine. They’re out at midnight. We want staff _out of their way_ when they’re cleaning.”

Jon seemed to have left his body behind, but his lips were thinning and Tim could see the bob of his throat as he swallowed nervously.

“He’ll have to head out early, eh?” Tim murmured to Sasha.

Sasha glanced at him, then meaningfully cut her eyes over to Martin.

Martin was looking straight ahead, face bland and politely attentive.

Tim’s eyebrows rose. Jon had informed the assistants that Martin would be living in the Archives for the time being, as his apartment was unsafe. Martin had nervously explained the Jane Prentiss worm siege over the small, Archive Assistants Only Happy Hour, which had led to an hour-long debate about who to report such a bizarre event to.

“I mean, I told Jon,” Martin had said. “We’re the ones who deal with weird stuff like this in the Institute, anyway. They’d just have us research it.”

“Isn’t it like a conflict of interest if you research your own statement?” Tim asked, and the conversation had spiralled from there. They immediately agreed that telling the police was an absolutely ridiculous idea, but Tim firmly believed telling your boss that the nightmare worm woman from various statements around London had trapped you in your flat for weeks was insufficient disclosure. Sasha thought that more research was key. Martin wanted help going back to his flat for a few things he could take into the Archives to make living there more comfortable. 

Now Martin was sitting in this staff meeting, a week’s worth of stubble on his cheeks, most of his clothes in a suitcase (that Sasha had helped him pack) in a locked document storage room a few floors down, where they’d been for nearly two months. Tim was impressed with how little he seemed to be listening to Rosie’s rant about leaving the Institute empty for cleaning after hours. He really looked like it didn’t apply to him at all.

Tim thought, _Martin’s a pretty good liar_. It was really quite impressive that he’d gotten this far in the Institute without getting caught. That was probably further evidence of his skill. You had to watch out for the quiet ones, they were full of great surprises.

* * *

“Martin?” Sasha said carefully, taking her time with his name and how gently she said it. This was a delicate issue to bring up, after all.

“Hmm?” Martin said. He was squinting at a densely-scribbled sticky note and typing a letter at a time as he deciphered it.

“Do you…? I don’t want you to feel self-conscious about this,” she said.

Martin looked up at her at that. “Oh christ, this doesn’t sound good.”

“No one’s noticed, no one comes down here, but you... well. Your work shirts could probably use an ironing?”

“Oh!” Martin immediately tried to inspect his own collar. He gave a self-deprecating little chuckle. “I guess you’re right, I’m a bit wrinkled.”

“Yeah, just a bit. I wouldn’t normally bring it up, it doesn’t bother me, but Elias is a bit of a stickler for dress code so you might want to fix it before he sees. You could ask Tim, he’d help you out. He loves a tidy placket.”

“Yeah? That does explain the cuffs on his jeans.”

Sasha grinned. “You’re so right. I should tease him about that.”

“It looks sharp!” Martin protested. “He’s a, a, a trendy dresser.”

“Unlike Jon, who’s archaic,” Sasha said. “Or me, who’s—“

“Ethereal?”

“Martin, you poet!”

Martin’s smile slipped. “Uh? How—?”

The door to Jon’s office slammed open hard enough that it hit the wall and rebounded close to closing again. The glowering woman who emerged from giving her statement marched out and turned to give Jon the two-finger salute.

“Very _mature_ ,” Jon said, venom in his voice. “ _Goodbye_ , Ms. King.”

“What did he do now?” Sasha murmured. Martin just sighed.

Jon stepped out of his office, watching Ms. King stalk out of the Archive. His arms were crossed tightly over his chest and he looked furious, which was a standard Jon expression.

“Jon?” Sasha called.

He looked at her, still glaring, but it had shifted into something more worried. “Hm? Oh. It’s all right. She just doesn’t have a lot of respect for the work we do here. That was Melanie King, of Ghost Hunt UK. The YouTuber?” Jon offered, like he expected Sasha to know who that was. Like it wasn’t bizarre to hear him say ‘meme’ and ‘YouTuber’ like a Millennial when he dressed, spoke, acted, and told people he was 40.

Sasha said, “I work in paranormal research, Jon. I’m not going to spend my off-time watching shows with less academic rigor than us.”

Jon’s mouth twisted for a moment, then he gave up and smiled at her. It was always such a pleasure to see his eyes crinkle up, a dimple appear low on his chin, and his mouth take on a lopsided shape of amusement. It was a sloppy smile, like he had never gotten practice with it.

Sasha heard Martin take a sudden, sharp breath in. She kept her eyes on Jon and added, “Are you going to ask me to watch her videos and leave some scathing comments on it?”

“God, no,” Jon said, smoothing his grin away with the back of his hand. “Don’t tempt me. I, ah. Did you get a copy of the footage she took? From the hospital? She said she submitted…?”

“Yeah, I scanned through it,” Sasha said. “I can show you what I pulled, but it’s almost completely corrupted. I only got a couple frames that show anything. Is there more to follow up on?”

“Yes,” Jon said. “We need to find a person named Sarah Baldwin, a sound engineer. I can— Ms. King got her contact information from someone so I’ll, I can reach out to that person and check. Or, no, actually, could you? I’ll send you the email. Just want to confirm addresses and that such a woman existed.”

“Sure,” Sasha said. “Who’s the contact?”

“Georgina Barker. Georgie. She does a podcast, What the Ghost?”

Sasha let out a laugh at the name. “Nice! Makes sense they’d have a little community around paranormal shows.”

“Yes. Thank you,” Jon added, and retreated back to his office. He looked relieved, but he probably shouldn’t; Melanie King looked like someone who filed complaints.

Martin huffed out a breath.

“Keep it together,” Sasha advised him.

“What? I— What do you mean?” Martin said, voice sliding up in pitch. He swallowed and added, deepening his voice to a silly degree, “I’m a professional.”

“You’re kipping in the storage closet and you can’t stop staring at Jon, your boss and one of the most uptight people I’ve met in my life,” Sasha said. She gave him a few pats on the back. “Keep it together,” she repeated.

Martin laughed a little and shrugged. “It’s nothing, Sasha. Really.”

“Hm. You all right here? Living here, I mean.”

His smile slipped. “Uh. Yeah. It’s fine.”

“We should do another Happy Hour, yeah? Or a games night? Get you out for a bit?”

Martin smiled a little. “That’d be nice. Thanks, Sasha.”

“Of course. Assistant solidarity!”

* * *

Jon half-stood, feeling the scream in his knees, his lower back aching. He waited a moment, letting his body remember how to be upright, but in that moment he recalled that Martin was in the storage room, sleeping on his cot.

“Damn,” Jon murmured.

It was late on a Thursday. He’d be cutting it close with a train home and then have to get up to get back on the Underground in just a few hours if he was going to start work early enough to finish up his research into a book that he was fairly certain was _not_ a Leitner, just a mysterious book that appeared on no records and the publisher didn’t exist. A Leitner of wasting his time, perhaps?

Jon sank back into his chair. He let his eyes slip closed. He breathed slowly. It wasn’t possible to keep his eyes open anymore.

Something woke him an undefined time later. His desk clock said it was ten, but the Archives were silent and it had passed ten in the evening a long time ago. Jon sat up slowly. He could taste the dry stickiness in his mouth. He hadn’t taken his glasses off before he fell asleep. He slid them off his nose now and let them drop to his chest. As he did so, Jon saw the worm.

It was small, silvery. It wriggled across the office floor, head questing without intent.

Jon heard himself make a low, animal hum of horrible realization, but he was already moving. The worm didn’t stand a chance as he brought his shoe down hard, leaving a big greasy smear behind on the carpet.

“Damn,” Jon said. He checked his shoe—disgusting—then affected a careful sidle out of the room, walking on his heel to keep the residual worm gunk from touching the floor. 

It was only a brief hop to the breakroom, and he was scrubbing at his shoe when Martin walked in, eyes half-lidded but (this time, thank god) wearing trousers. That narrowed down what time it was to morning, before the Institute fully opened but not too early.

“Good morning,” Jon said.

“Ah!” Martin blinked himself more awake. “Morning, Jon. Uh, I didn’t hear you come in?”

“I, I didn’t leave last night,” Jon said, binning the dirty paper towel and grabbing a few more to clean the worm off his office carpet. “Always more work to do, you know.”

“Sure, but surely you don’t have to— Oh. I’m sorry I’m taking your cot—“

“You need it more than I do, Martin. I have a flat; I just don’t spend a lot of time there, lately.”

“True, I guess.” There was a silence. Martin eyed the snack cabinet that Sasha and Tim were taking turns restocking with cereal, cup noodles, bread, and peanut butter so Martin didn’t have to leave for supplies too much. He looked back at Jon, though, and asked a little teasingly, “Is your shoe okay?”

“I found one of Prentiss’ worms.”

Martin’s eyes got almost comically huge behind his thin-rimmed glasses. “Shit, really? Oh, I didn’t mean—“

“In my office.”

“Shit!”

“I mean, I killed it, obviously, but… Well. I’ll tell Elias we need more CO2 canisters. Again. I told him after Sasha’s incident, but he waved me off. This is some concrete proof that they’re still an issue. Maybe some sort of suppression system…” Jon mentally considered his departmental budget and frowned in thought.

“Wouldn’t that ruin the Archives?” Martin asked.

“So would a worm infestation.”

“Oh, true.”

Jon waved his handful of paper towels. “I’ll clean up and then let him know. Ah, what time is it?”

“Half-past seven.”

“Right. Well, you’re not on the clock for another half hour, so—“

“It’s fine,” Martin said quickly.

“Really? All right then, take your time with your tea and—“

“Do you want one?”

Jon blinked. “Oh. If you’re…? If that’s all right? Y-yes, thank you.”

Martin smiled at him. “Of course, Jon.”

“Right. Um. I’ll be in my office, then.”

“You always are,” Martin said around a little laugh. Jon squinted at him suspiciously for a moment, then decided that it sounded kind, not mocking. He returned to battle his worm-stained office carpet, a pleased feeling of anticipation in his chest. Martin did make a good cuppa.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I asked for an iron and ironing board for my 24th birthday because I, too, enjoy a tidy placket. I have gotten a great amount of use out of those tools over the years. There's a nice luxury to a pressed collar.
> 
> Jon's time-wasting '''''Leitner''''' is based on another tumblr post I saw about a book that had no record of its own existence, from its publisher not existing to the author not existing. At this point, I just send my friend Hic anything vaguely weird or unsettling or just a picture of a door and tell her 'it's a Magnus Archives.' I'm saving them up for this fic.


	15. August 2016

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not technically set in the workplace, but what the heck did Jon DO for a month after worms tried to eat him?

To keep from picking at the scabs that the worms left behind, Jon started doodling. He drew mindless squiggles or boxes or the shape of the stack of books by his bed. None of it was particularly artistic, but it served its purpose. For every moment he was awake, he would have to hold a pen in hand and trap the paper with the other. He needed to keep his hands busy, or else he would start digging at the tight spots on his skin, the ridges and hard patches, the places where his shirt or sweatpants caught on his mutilated skin. He’d had his sleeves rolled up when there was the worm attack in July and they got into his arms. 

Clothing hadn’t stopped the worms, of course. The worst wound he’d gotten was in his leg, where one had chewed through his trousers in seconds and made its way deeply into his calf before Sasha could drag it out. The corkscrew had been a clever thought, but the horror on the nurse’s face when he told her what had generated such an odd wound had signaled that it wasn’t the ideal solution. He was still healing from that one. He wasn’t supposed to be walking on it. 

Checkups were taking up some of his ample free time. He was off work and it was… frustrating. Tim was on medical leave as well. Jon couldn’t tell if he had someone taking care of him or several someones. He was sending Jon infrequent, complaint-heavy texts, which were usually accompanied by some pictures of Tim’s healing worm wounds. The wounds were scattered as randomly as Jon’s over his arms, cheeks, ribs, and legs. It killed a little time, determining what body part Tim was sending Jon now. It also made Jon feel somewhat better, knowing how someone else was healing. And it confirmed that Tim was bedridden. It was good to know his whereabouts for now. Jon was starting to wonder who would have killed Gertrude.

Sasha had been right; Tim couldn’t grow a beard to save his life. Jon wasn’t shaving at all. He couldn’t stand to see his own face in the mirror. He had always dressed for professionalism, even moreso when he became Head Archivist, but that wasn’t going to matter much if the little worm marks racing up his neck and over his face were going to remain. Sometimes he could convince himself they just looked like acne scars.

Because Jon had too much time on his hands and was avoiding thinking about what he would look like once he’d healed, that meant his mind turned to work. He could only sit so long, could only surf so many sites without the access that the Institute’s database subscriptions gave him. 

After three and a half weeks, he pulled on some real clothes. He gave up at trousers—they were too hard to pull on without straightening the leg that had been corkscrewed. A skirt was easier. Jon couldn’t bring himself to care how _that_ would look with his beard that he could only trim, not ready yet to brave a razor so close to healing skin (and not willing to inspect his own face that closely for that long). 

Clothed for the public, he then took himself and his crutches down to the nearest Tube station. He kept his headphones in and his eyes on the train floor. He made it to the Institute without completely collapsing. He was thwarted, however, before he could snag his work laptop.

“You need to concentrate on getting better, Jon,” Martin said, looming. He’d gingerly given Jon a hug when he’d seen him in the Institute’s atrium. He’d said Jon’s skirt looked nice. And now he stood, nonthreatening but very firm, in front of the door to the Archives when Jon tried to scoot by him. Martin was sweating through his dirty T-shirt and stained jeans and his hair was falling out of his typical ponytail but he did not look like a man who would be moved.

“All your work will be here for you when you’ve healed up,” Martin insisted. “Sasha and I are still cleaning up, so don’t worry; we aren’t researching without you. You and Tim should rest, all right? Um. Do you need anything?”

“I can do statements without exerting myself,” Jon insisted. “Surely a tape recorder would—“

With brittle cheer, Martin said, “Nope!” He frowned for a moment, then said, “Wait, didn’t you have a tape recorder with you? There were… I think there were three? Sasha had one, you had one, and I-I had one that, uh, it’s here. Not being used, obviously, but.” Martin smiled a bit, let out a huffing chuckle. “Ready when you’re back.”

“I lost the second tape recorder,” Jon said, flat and quick. “I’m, I’m not sure when that happened. In the attack, of course, but I don’t know where it went. Is Sasha here now?” Jon peered around, or tried to. A few of his scabs pulled when he turned his head and he winced and stopped.

“She went on lunch,” Martin said. “She’s been taking long ones, too, so I don’t know when she’ll be back. Are you all right?”

“Perfectly fine. My voice wasn’t damaged, either, so I could keep going with the—“

“ _No_ , Jon,” Martin sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose under his glasses. “Good to see you. You look like you still need another month of rest, though. Here, I’ll call a cab.”

Jon simply couldn’t forget that this was the building where Gertrude had probably spent some of her last hours, and the space below it was where she had lost her life. A murdered Archivist in the secret tunnels of the Magnus Institute was a disturbing thought. It was, frankly, making Jon feel a bit jumpy. Arguing with anyone, even Martin, was too much work. “Fine.”

It wasn’t until Martin was seeing him out, walking at his side as he maneuvered himself down the steps of the Archive on his crutches, that Jon remembered with a cold horror that this building was Martin’s home. He slept here, yet another place that Jane Prentiss had attacked. 

“Martin, do you need somewhere to stay?” he asked, and then realized how that sounded when Martin’s mouth dropped open and his ears began to flush. Jon quickly added, “I, I, I just, I remembered you’re living here, and that’s _not_ right at all, not after… well, the worms.”

“No,” Martin said, his voice almost a squeak. He cleared his throat. “I’m fine, Jon. I found a new place. I’m moving there soon! It’s a bit far, but it’s in my price range and it’s small and I’m fine.”

“Small is… good?” Jon said, because he couldn’t think of anything else to say. A new, sharp part of him thought that it was going to be easier to get a look at the tunnels if Martin wasn’t sleeping in the Institute. 

“I feel better when I feel like I can, uh, defend an area,” Martin said. He giggled a little. “Bit of a weird thought, but. There you go.”

“There you go,” Jon echoed. He was sagging now, sinking into his crutches. The painkillers made Jon woozy and healing made him tired. The toes of his elevated, healing leg touched the sidewalk. He wasn’t supposed to put any weight on it until the calf knitted back together—it was an often-used muscle and the wound could reopen easily, the doctor had said.

“You okay, Jon?”

“Bit, uh. Bit worn down.”

Martin bit his lip, then said, “Are you sleeping?”

Jon coughed up a laugh from some deep part of himself. “I have painkillers, Martin. I’m sleeping so much, I don’t know what’s real anymore.”

“ _Christ_ ,” Martin said, with feeling.

“S-sorry, that sounded— I am sleeping. It’s just not very restful. And I feel like I need to sleep a _lot_. Getting here took a bit more out of me than I’d realized.”

“…Right.” Martin nodded slowly. “Um. Oh, the taxi’s here!”

“Ah,” Jon said. “Excellent.” As he slid into the back of the cab, he added, “Thank you, Martin.”

“Of, of course, Jon.”

Jon gave him one last look, trying to look a bit pitiful and sad. “Are you sure there aren’t any statements I should—“

Martin was smiling. He passed Jon the crutches. “Feel better, Jon. I can come by with some books, if you like.”

“…I’ll let you know.”

“Sure. Get well soon!”

Jon waved and then eased back in the seat and closed his eyes.

He had told Martin the truth—he was sleeping. The painkillers knocked him right out. They were strong. They made his sleep dreamless and deep. It was the unexpected naps that he hated. The itching of healing scabs sometimes filtered into his subconsciousness and reminded him of the feel of dozens of little mouths working their way inside of him. The wriggles of pain, attacking him down to his core. An invasion. A violation.

Jon checked his phone once he was back at his flat. He had a message from Tim that included a picture of a little bottle. The associated text read:

_Vitamin eeeeeee!!! Get some, bossman, helps reduce scarring. My m8 Min told me about it._

Jon raised his eyebrows and responded, _Thank you, Tim, I’ll consider it_.

_Srsly helps. Hope you feel better than I do :P_

Jon typed in, _Thanks_ , but it seemed insufficient. He thought for a moment, then added, _I probably don’t_. He looked at the words for another moment, then deleted them and simply sent, _Thanks_.

Jon didn’t leave his apartment. He ordered takeout and ate it (his doctor had made it clear to take the painkillers _after_ eating). He watched documentaries he couldn’t recall ten minutes after the credits rolled. He listened to music that demanded nothing from him. He kept his hands busy with doodling nonsense shapes and sharp spikes and cones and cubes. 

When he dropped into those odd, random naps that took him without warning, Jon dreamed of worms and gunshot wounds and secrets beneath the Institute. He mended his clothes that needed hemming or a new button. He did his laundry slowly, folding a few socks and shirts at a time before letting his arms rest from their gentle ache of gnawed muscles getting some use. He slept and spoke with a physical therapist about rehabilitating his leg and slept and tried to find any news articles on what had happened in the Archives but couldn’t and slept. In summary, Jon waited.

In one corner of his coffee table, his tape recorder sat unused. It also looked like it was waiting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t know if they prescribe opiates as freely in the UK as they do in the US. I made Jon a bit more functional than I was on painkillers. I thought I was taking Percocet for 3 days after a surgery but it was actually 3 weeks I don’t remember much of! Percocet is not fun! (This was years ago, but it still disturbs me that I lost that much time.)
> 
> I’ve never used it, but Vitamin E _is_ suggested as a remedy to reduce scarring.


	16. November 2016

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> it’s Halloween week, morale in the Archives is shit, and only you, dear reader, notice there’s something a little different about Sasha.

Tim leaned back in his desk chair and popped his spine. 

“Good one,” Martin said, peering around one of the piles of statements on his desk to give Tim a thumbs-up.

“Yeah, thanks. What's the time?”

“Four fifty-eight,” Sasha said from behind her own statement fortress.

Tim groaned loud and long. “Halloween week is the worst time to work in paranormal research.” He paused for a moment before he added, “If there ever is a good time to work in—“

“All right, we get it,” Martin said.

“Tetchy?” Tim stood on stiff knees and wandered over to Martin’s desk to peer at him. “The boss rubbing off on you?”

Martin gave him a flat, unamused look over the top rims of his glasses that made Tim grin. The ache in his jaw reminded him that he hadn’t really be smiling much lately. He ran a thumb over his own cheek and felt the ridges of scar tissue, roughening up his rounded jawline.

“It’s almost quittin’ time,” he offered, looking around to where Sasha was. Her stack of statements to research (and disprove) had been significantly reduced and the pale top of her head was just visible. Tim tried to catch her eye but she was typing and didn’t look at him. Tim’s stomach sank a little.

“We have a mountain of work and it’s Wednesday,” Martin said. “You _know_ how Halloween gets. It’ll probably be late nights for all of us, instead of just late nights for Jon.”

“Yeah, but this is shit that Research pushed off on us,” Tim said. “It’s not our usual work, who cares if we skim a few?”

Behind him, Sasha moved another stack of files to the floor with a loud, satisfied _thump_.

“You and Sasha used to be in Research,” Martin said. “Jon, too. No sympathy for former coworkers?” He sat back suddenly and frowned. “Actually… Have you ever talked about your old coworkers?”

Tim shrugged. “It was… Well. To say the team was pissed about the whole Head Archivist thing would be putting it lightly. Jon poached me and Sasha from the team just when the Head of Research took his retirement. Katie’d been there the longest but Elias decided to leave the position vacant. Jon was already annoying her, just because… well, you know how he gets absorbed into work? He was almost as bad in Research. No time for anything or anyone—except me and Sasha, of course.” Tim glanced behind him but Sasha only smiled faintly at her computer screen, still not looking around. Tim sighed and said, “Katie said some stuff, Jon got defensive… I had to take his side, he was my new boss. And she was out of line with some of the shit she said. Personal, you know. Never saw him that unsettled until the whole worms thing.”

“Oh,” Martin said. “I, I saw how Research has been around Jon but I didn’t realize it had all that history.”

“Mm. They’re understaffed now and Elias won’t give them budget for more people because the Archives staff is so much larger now. It’s a whole big office politics mess, stay out of it if you can. But, in my opinion, we have to guard our precious time, and even if Jon’s going off the rails with the stalking—“

From her desk, Sasha snorted in disgust.

“He’s really bad at sneaking,” Martin sighed. “And I don’t even really know why he’s bothered. I don’t think my life’s particularly interesting. It’s just, you know, the _principle_ of having a private, personal life.”

“No secret mistress?” Tim said, attempting a grin.

Martin huffed out a single, unamused laugh. “No.”

“No secret mister? Is there a term for that, actually? Or the nonbinary equivalent? Mixter, maybe? Mixtress?”

“I don’t know, but _no_ , Tim. Could you drop it?”

“Sure, sure.” Tim considered bringing up Jon’s new girlfriend, the cop, but decided that he wasn’t that vindictive. Jon would throw a shitfit about professionalism in the workplace. Somehow, the sloppiest, squintiest, frowniest version of their boss—and Tim had thought he’d already met the most glowering version of him already—has nabbed himself an attractive cop girlfriend. Not an awesome choice in terms of her profession, but it was, weirdly, comforting to know Jon could relate to people outside the workplace enough to make a connection. He was shutting down all the little cracks of friendliness that Tim had worked so hard to put in his shell, but maybe he had outside-of-work friends he just refused to talk about. 

Not _very_ likely, but Tim could hope for the guy.

“It is now well after five,” Tim said, looking up to the cracked ceiling tiles as if they held deep secrets. “A reasonable time to leave, one might say.”

When he looked back down, Martin gestured to the stacks of statements surrounding him, eyebrows raised in accusation.

Tim waved dismissively. “It’ll be here tomorrow.”

Martin looked at Jon’s door. It was a reflex at this point, probably. He’d spent the past three months hovering around Jon, offering tea, encouraging meal breaks, and, on one memorable occasion, going with him to the A&E when (according to Jon) he’d had an accident with a bread knife. Martin still brought that particular wound up as an example of how fragile Jon was right now. 

Tim had to admit that Martin had also been quite kind to Tim, doing the carrying and high-up reaching when the very diminutive Sasha asked for help with reorganizing the discredited statements. He gave amazing hugs and he’d always been ready with a plaster or two when a worm mark reopened. He didn’t look at Tim the way he looked at Jon’s office door, though. He certainly didn’t look at Tim the way he looked at Jon when Jon actually emerged from his office.

This time, Jon did not emerge from the office.

“I should stay,” Martin said quietly. “I’ll, I should… be out by six or so, probably. Um. Maybe seven? Sorry. I can text you?”

“If you like. I’m leaving now,” Tim said. “How about you, Sasha?”

“Sorry, Tim. I’m almost done with this stack.”

Tim’s stomach sank some more. “How ‘almost’ done are you?” he said, trying to sound charming instead of desperate.

Her cool grey eyes met his and she smiled with an edge of pity. “I have plans tonight. Sorry.”

“New beau?” Tim asked, taking a few steps closer.

Her smile was fixed. “It’s personal.”

“Right.” Tim faded back, hip bouncing off Martin’s desk as he turned blindly towards his own work. He didn’t exactly have anywhere to be on an evening in the middle of the week. There were a few friends he could call, potentially. No one he really wanted to see. He could always go out and have a drink alone, but that seemed a bit too far. He picked his jacket up off the back of his chair, held it tightly for a moment, stared at the stacks of statements and scribbled notes and the black of his sleeping computer screen. When he glanced back at his coworkers, he realized their desks looked disturbingly similar to his own. 

He’d used to have framed photos of his friends, a few pictures from trips, a plastic dinosaur toy that he’d found on the way into work… Just little things. No plants, he wasn’t a nurturer, but little random desk accessories that could distract him when he was a bit bored. Now it was just work on his desk.

He’d never, ever brought a picture of his brother into the Institute.

Tim pulled on his jacket, patted Martin on the shoulder as he passed, and stalked out into the deepening dark of the November evening.


	17. March 2017

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon and Sasha have vanished. Someone’s gotta read statements.

The discredited section of the Archives was the most complete, currently. The way Martin looked at it, it was the most full and was sorted by submission date, which was easy enough. Last names of statement-givers were included on each folder and easily flipped through. It looked neat and professional.

The investigated statements were a teetering disaster. The tapes took up room and warped the shape of the folders they were placed in. Some items associated with statements also hadn’t been taken to Artifact Storage because they weren’t dangerous; they were just weird. The tooth apple had made Martin dry heave for a second. The artist’s photographs of birches with eye patterns in their bark were too big for standard manila folders, so he’d had to put them on top of the document box. There wasn’t a tape with that one—maybe it had been misplaced? For most of the statements, there was a slip from Storage paperclipped to the folder that noted when a particularly unwieldy item had been brought downstairs and given its number and space in the warehouse. Those little receipts were written on everything from repurposed graphite paper order pads to the back of a different receipt from a nearby Tesco. Judging from the purchases (crisps, a couple chocolate bars, a pack of menstrual pads, a pack of condoms, a pack of sellotape, and a bottle of white wine), Martin was betting it had been a receipt of Gilpin's.

Still, the files were in as good an order as Martin could get them. He had filed everything that had already been reviewed by Jon before he… fled? Vanished? Martin didn’t know what else to do. He and Tim couldn’t quit, they knew that much already. It felt good to stay busy.

Tim had taken over Jon’s office but didn’t really seem do anything in it. The stacks of statements waiting for first review or for recording were still in their untouched, gradually dusty piles. One day, when Tim had left early, Martin had gone on the hunt for more sticky notes and found the jar of Jane Prentiss’ ashes, unlabelled but still kept safe in a drawer. There’d been nothing personal on Jon’s desk, just papers and scrawled notes about follow up leads and some battered flash drives. 

Tim wasn’t touching anything in that office apart from the very comfy desk chair, apparently. He was quiet, unsmiling, but he still sent a fair amount of memes to Martin’s work email throughout the day. No commentary added. He wouldn’t look at Sasha’s empty desk. 

Martin had given in and taken all of Sasha’s active cases to his own desk. He reviewed them as best he could and finished what he was able to do, and then he typed up his reports. And then he didn’t know what to do next.

Martin was scrolling through an article about ghazals when he heard brisk, light footsteps down the hall. He clicked into a database hastily and then Elias was there, striding towards him with purpose, a tailored grey suit, stylish glasses perched on his thin nose, and a smile.

“Good afternoon, Martin. It’s still so odd to see you down here after you were in the Library for so long. All going well down here?”

“Uh, hello! It’s, it’s about as well as—“

“Is Tim around?”

Martin glanced at the closed office door that read ‘Head Archivist.’ “Yes? He’s around, yeah.”

Elias popped his head in the door without knocking. “Tim, could you come out here please? Just a quick meeting.”

Tim emerged. Martin knew he’d been wearing the same slightly grimy khakis for the past week (maybe longer—he didn’t ask to hang out outside of work anymore so Martin didn’t know what he got up to on the weekend) and his dark T-shirt had a few holes at the collars and cuffs. He looked wrong without a grin on his face, sounded off when he spoke in a flat monotone: “What’s up?”

“As you know, the Archive staff has seen some… reduction recently. Unexpected, unfortunate, but I suppose it’s time to discuss how to proceed while our Head Archivist is absent.”

“They still haven’t found Jon?” Martin asked, feeling a squirrelly knot of anxiety and relief in his gut. He ignored Tim’s disgusted huff and added, “The, the police, Detective Tonner is still looking?”

Elias turned that faint, ever-present smile towards Martin and said, “Yes, Martin, Detective Tonner is still hunting for him. So, while he’s out, I’d like you two to take over recording statements.”

There was a pause.

“Sorry, you want us to what?” Tim asked.

Elias’ smile didn’t waver. “Record the statements. Perhaps each of you could take a turn? You can sort it amongst yourselves. They do need to be recorded, though. It’s an essential part of the work in the Archive. And of course, please maintain your high research standards into the statement follow-up.”

“With just the two of us?” Martin said, stomach sinking now.

“Yes, Martin.”

“Have they found Sasha at all?” Tim asked, an edge to his voice. Martin winced—he hadn’t asked about that search.

“They haven’t, Tim,” Elias said. His smile inverted, turning into a concerned, pouty little frown. “It’s very concerning, and very unusual. Both of them are such conscientious employees, normally. However, I don’t know that Jon’s disappearance and Sasha’s are connected. She wasn’t even here the night Jon left. Just a terrible coincidence, perhaps. I’m glad we have London’s finest on the case.”

A memory flashed in Martin’s mind, of a horribly warped and stretched and twisted version of the Sasha James he had known and spent years working with, screaming for Jon in the tunnels under the institute. It was certainly terrible. Could it be a coincidence? There was no way that could have been her…

“To return to the matter at hand,” Elias said. “I need statements recorded. Please proceed with work as usual and hopefully this will all be sorted out soon.”

“Right,” Tim said, voice hollow. “Got it.”

“Y-yeah,” Martin added, a beat too late; Elias was turning to go and didn’t look back. 

The door creaked closed behind him and Martin and Tim stood side by side. 

“You want to do the first one, Marto.” Tim said. He sounded tired, and it wasn’t a question. “Take the office. It’s all set for recording, anyway.”

“Are you sure, Tim?” Martin said. “I can—“

“Go for it,” Tim said with a snort. “I’m going to… I’ll be back in a bit.” 

“Oh. Um… Okay,” was all Martin could say as he watched Tim slope off towards the breakroom. He looked at the top statement file on his own desk. The number was 9900112—Adrian Weiss’ statement. He’d already looked into all the follow-up. It was past noon and he’d taken his lunch. Writing a ghazal at work was just a blatant waste of an hour.

Martin took a deep breath in and let it out slowly. Then he took the statement into Jon’s—the Head Archivist’s office. He might as well get started.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Melanie shows up right after this and then they are three.
> 
> Writing Tim’s emotional descent has been absolutely a bummer. It makes total sense and it’s so, so sad.
> 
> Ghazals are a poetic form I have fucked up so royally, I will never forget them. I love writing a structured poem, even though I rarely do so.


	18. May/June 2017

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon’s out of the Archives (kidnapped for the month of May and travelling most of June). That isn’t important to Melanie, though. She’s just trying to survive drudgery.

Weeks ago, Jon had burst into the office with a bandaged hand, dried blood speckled on his shirt, dirt ground into his jeans, and a few plasters stuck across a gash in the side of his neck. He had looked like absolute hell and Melanie was pretty sure she recognized the jacket he’d been wearing as Georgie’s, because what was cool denim on her was smothering his scrawny frame. He’d been flanked by a couple cops. They’d proceeded to get Elias Bouchard, a creep of a boss but bland as toast, to admit to murdering the former Head Archivist. 

And then nothing had happened. Jon had gone away again (though Martin swore he’d seen Jon for lunch a couple times and statements disappeared from his office if they were left there more than a day) and Elias had gotten away with all of it. He’d trapped a pile of people in his precious, pretentious Institute and there were no consequences.

Sasha (the one that only Melanie remembered) was dead. Tim was despairing, unless Jon came within his field of vision, and then he got caustic. Basira did nothing but read. Daisy was out. Martin was the only one consistently archiving. Melanie was doing her best to ignore how the itch of containment felt. She was keeping her head down and doing her research and she was fine. Even if she couldn’t quit this job the way she’d quit all her other jobs before she made her own fucking job for herself. 

For a few anxious, desperate, glorious years, she’d clawed together the shape of something she knew would be fun to make. _Ghost Hunt UK_ had been wonderful. She’d met so many creative people and done shit she could probably make into a memoir if she were a better writer. The words wouldn’t come, though. Maybe she could have someone interview her? Not Jon, the dickhead, though she did have to admit he knew how to listen to a story like he cared about it. 

No one else in the Archives knew how to get people talking like Jon. Melanie honestly hadn’t thought it would be so _difficult_ to take statements. She’d been a little wary about it wearing her out the way the first statement she’d read had done. None of the ones she’d read aloud had needed to be tape recorded, though. Martin assured her that he would be handling those. Elias had requested it. 

Melanie was… she was doing her best not to think about Elias. She skipped most of the regular staff meetings and made Martin or Basira run interference whenever he bothered the Archives staff about progress into researching the Unknowing thingy. 

When Jon got back the next time, Melanie was the first of the Archive Assistant crew to see him. He was even skinnier than before, but his scars looked like they’d healed up more than last time, and she wondered for a second if he’d discovered foundation because his skin looked fantastic. He still looked haggard, sleep-deprived, and haunted. There were bruised marks on his wrists and he was swaying. He had to brace himself against Elias’ desk, like he wasn’t quite sure how to balance on solid ground. He informed Melanie that he’d been kidnapped.

What do you say to someone who’s been kidnapped but looks offended about it? Who says it like an excuse and not like he needs to report it to someone for investigation?

It took her a few hours to calm down but she passed Jon in the breakroom and decided that the ‘being-held-against-your-will-for-a-month’ thing outweighed how pissed she was that she’d been prevented from trying to stab Elias (again).

“So… you look like hell but you also look really moisturized,” Melanie said.

Jon closed his eyes briefly, then continued his slightly staggering pace back to the Archives. “Why are you telling me that?”

Melanie shrugged. “It’s really weird and it deserves a comment.”

“Yes, well, there was a certain amount of… epidermal preoccupation.”

Melanie let out a “Hah!” of laughter that surprised them both. “That’s _really_ fucked up, Jon! Jesus!”

“Mm.” He was nearly smiling as he turned back to face her.

“Are you… you know, all right?”

“I don’t need to be hospitalized. I, I really don’t want to talk about my mental state right now.”

“Yeah, fair. You look a little more healed up than before, though.”

“Oh? I haven’t seen a mirror or anything.”

“Yeah, your… well, your scarring looks less intense.”

He ran a hand over his burn-slick right palm. “…Interesting.”

“How many do you have?”

Jon took a few steps into the fluorescent lights of the breakroom and hovered awkwardly in the doorway as he admitted, “I don’t know. A lot? I think they said twenty-eight at the hospital when I… uh, the Jane Prentiss thing.”

“Eugh. Worms.” Melanie made a face. “Martin told me.”

“Y-yes. So, there’s that. Jude.” He waved his scarred hand, then rested his fingertips on his throat for a moment, where a scar twisted up the left side. “Daisy. You saw the, ah, aftermath of that one.” His mouth quirked a little as he tugged up the sleeve on his right arm and showed a long slice from his bony outer wrist along the top of his forearm. “If Martin asks, this was from a bread knife accident. It was Michael, but he won’t… uh.” The smile vanished again. He cleared his throat, then tugged up his other sleeve, revealing some irregular parallel lines on his inner forearm. “Held a rescue cat as an ambulance went by.”

“Oh, so there’s ones from normal misadventures, too?” Melanie said. “You didn’t name all of them after people?”

“Well, that one’s technically named The Admiral,” Jon said. He tapped his left thumb and said, “This one’s the oldest. Tinned tomatoes.”

“Okay, I get it.”

“There’s a lot,” Jon said, smile slowly growing again. He scraped his scarred thumb through his beard. “I have a few shaving ones…”

“Yes! Got it; you’re accident-prone. Get out of here. Clear out your office, it’s like Martin built you a statement shrine in there.”

Jon raised an eyebrow. “Right. Well. Thanks for asking after my health.”

“Yeah, don’t mention it.”

He set her looking into tracking traffic wardens before the week was out. He was, still, her boss. She didn’t like him being here, cutting into her personal research, but he didn’t smile the way Elias did. At least he wasn’t as creepy as Elias. 

Martin and Basira didn’t care the Head of the Magnus Institute was a fucking monster. Tim wasn’t angry like she was. Maybe Daisy would have been pissed off with her, but she wasn’t around much. And Jon was… gone. Again. Almost immediately after he got back. His final assignment before he rushed off to China was for the entire Archives staff to research UK wax museums. Basira started a Slack channel for the most disturbing waxworks figures and Martin audibly squeaked when a particularly bad one popped up on the feed. Tim, of course, didn’t join it, but Melanie and Martin added a few of their finds. Daisy posted fucked up doll heads from some adventure she was on and _that_ made Martin go on a horrified emoji spree.

It was a little pathetic, Melanie thought, that this was the highlight of her time at the Magnus Institute. It was increasingly hard to stop thinking about how she was trapped in this fucking awful place with a bland, quiet, sit-down-shut-up job. It kept her up at night, some the things she was finding in her research, but that was a small price to pay. Some part of her purred as she looked into ways to get rid of Elias. Those were the only times it felt easier to breathe without snarling.

Because Jon was still checking in with them, work was a little easier, actually. Before, when Jon had been kidnapped, work had slowed to nothing. Melanie had managed to do tons of research into her own gory topic, but that was because the Archives had felt… not dead, exactly, but still. Waiting. It felt like everyone walked in and held their breath until they walked out again at the end of the day. With Jon gone this time, to China and then to America, all that happened was that Martin was texting him like he’d get reimbursed for phone data. 

Unexpectedly, Tim cornered Melanie in Artifact Storage. She was cross-referencing statement numbers with back-labelled Storage item numbers. It was a bad pain day for her leg (why wouldn’t the damn thing heal?) and her bad mood was simmering.

“Still hate Elias Bouchard?” he asked without preamble. Gilpin looked up from their desk, frowned, then scooted out the door when they saw whatever expression Tim was wearing. Melanie didn’t turn around.

“Yes,” she said when the door to Storage closed behind Gilpin.

“Think he’s the only thing keeping us alive?”

Melanie snorted and clicked to the next line in the Excel sheet. “What?”

“He said if we kill him, we die, right? D’you believe him?”

Melanie twisted in her chair and regarded Tim Stoker, who was wearing ripped cutoffs and a sweater that was several sizes too big and probably was on loan from Martin; he’d given up on workplace professionalism, since none of them could leave their jobs anyway. He also had an edge in his voice that she hadn’t heard before.

“I don’t know,” she said. “He’s… convincing.”

“He’s a liar.”

“Yeah, that’s part of why he’s good at being convincing.”

Tim was nearly quivering with tension and it was making Melanie a little nervous but a lot curious. He said, “I don’t think he’s as important as he thinks he is.”

“No,” she said, feeling her rage start to boil as she thought about Elias’ smug face. “He’s definitely not.”

Tim took a step closer to her. “How would you do it? Kill him?”

“I don’t know.” It was true; she had too many ideas to choose from. She was amassing possibilities and knives and poisons in small, random purchases. Nothing concrete, yet. “He seems like a guy who knows a lot and uses that to his advantage, but I feel like there are guys who plot and plan and then, at the end of the day, they have these huge schemes and you could just’—“ she mimed stabbing someone a few times “—and it’s ‘scheme thwarted,’ you know?”

Tim laughed without humor, like he’d forgotten how to laugh but could still recognize the cue. “Yeah, that does sound like Elias.”

“Right. You have any plans for how you’d it?” Melanie asked. It felt casual, asking Tim about his plot to murder the Head of the Magnus Institute.

“No,” Tim said. “I just don’t think it’d be as bad for all of us as he says it would.”

“Could be,” Melanie said. “I’m still weighing the cost-benefits, but… yeah, I don’t trust him.”

“Good. Think on it?” Tim asked. His shoulders slumped slightly and he looked away. “I just… He’s done so much harm, you know?”

“Yeah, I know. It’s fucked up.”

Tim huffed a laugh. “It really, really is. The world’s fucked up.”

“Tim?” A massive biker-dad of a man was standing in the doorway, Gilpin behind him. “You all right, mate?”

“Not really,” Tim said. He huffed again and said, “God, I wish I could quit this fucking job.”

The biker-dad darted a look at Melanie, then behind him at Gilpin. “Okay? Um. Did you need—?”

“I’ll leave,” Tim said, waving a hand at them. “Don’t worry, Vihaan, I’m not gonna go off again.”

“Right, right,” Vihaan said, backing up to let Tim out of the room. He and Gilpin watched Tim walk away, then both turned back to Melanie.

“You all right talking to him?” Vihaan asked. “He’s, uh.”

“Yeah,” Melanie said when both of the Storage employees failed to elaborate. “It’s fine, he’s not in the office much. And he’s just… hurting.”

Gilpin nodded sympathetically. “Sasha.”

Vihaan winced and agreed. “Sasha.”

“I guess? Sure,” Melanie said, deciding she didn’t want to be labelled ‘Archival Assistant Conspiracy Theorist No. 2.’ 

“Sasha was great,” Gilpin said. “Such a sweetheart.”

“She worked here for a bit, until it got a bit much for her,” Vihaan explained to Melanie, who hadn’t asked. “We all thought Research would be safer for her. And it was, but then… Archives.”

“Gertrude,” Gilpin added with a nod, and then, as an afterthought, “and Jon.”

“Sure,” Melanie said, not following any of this cryptic coworker bullshit. “Can I just print this catalogue out and do it at my desk?”

“No printer here,” Gilpin said. “Died… six months ago?”

“Eight,” Vihaan grumbled, heading to one of the spindly desks.

“We don’t have the budget the Archives does.” Gilpin sighed dramatically.

“I’ll email it to myself,” Melanie said sharply. “ _Okay_?”

“Please yourself,” they said.

“Yes, because my fucking job is so fucking fun,” Melanie growled under her breath. She attempted to mentally prepare to spend her afternoon with a fucking spreadsheet. Under the desk, her foot flexed as the itch under her skin, down near the bone, started to creep up to her knee.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a friend who can’t fathom how people do office jobs, she always has to be moving. I think of Melanie that way. She wants to be in the thick of things, doing practical investigations, not stuck doing sit-down research in an institute. 
> 
> Also, let Melanie say fuck!!!! This is set right before she has the mind-attack from Elias so she’s less bloodthirsty at the moment, but she can daydream. She’s got the Slaughter bullet in her already.
> 
> My eternal thanks to the Magnus Archives Unofficial Transcripts. I am timing this out to the week with lots of cross-checking and it’s an absolute delight to piece this timeline together.


	19. October 2017

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Basira and Melanie witness Martin’s reaction to his mother’s death. Warnings for grief and awkwardness around a coworker losing someone you're pretty sure wasn't a great person.

Martin ended the call and set his phone down carefully on his desk. His hands were shaking; Basira could see the shudder from three desks away. The click of his throat as he swallowed was loud in the silence of the Archives.

“Martin?” Basira said. Her voice was naturally quiet, but she was surprised when his name came out as almost a whisper, like she didn’t really want to get his attention. She said it louder: “Hey.”

“I,” Martin said, and then stopped and swallowed again.

Basira picked up a wastepaper basket and started moving towards him. His shaking was slowing down but he’d brought his hand up to cover his mouth, fingers dinging into his flesh. 

“Are you gonna be sick?” Basira asked, setting the basket down next to him. 

Martin shook his head but didn’t speak. He closed his eyes.

“Is… Is it Jon?”

Martin sputtered, almost a laugh but mostly horrified. His hand dropped to the desk. “ _No._ ”

“All right.” Basira waited.

Martin sucked in a huge gulp of air and opened his eyes. “I’ve got to take the, the rest of the day off. I need to. I should go.” 

“Martin?”

He scooped up a sticky note with some information on it, fumbled to turn off his monitor and laptop. His desk was all but empty now, cleared out for whoever would be an Archival Assistant next. Martin was due to move permanently to the Admin offices next week. Meaghan had been furious, apparently—she’d expected to make it to Assistant with the new power structure. Basira didn’t know who Meaghan was but she hoped the woman wouldn’t complain too loudly, or to the wrong person. 

Two students had vanished last week, wandering too close to Admin and Peter Lukas’ office. It was that disappearance that had led to Martin packing his desk up to take a space in the Head of the Institute’s office.

“Martin,” Basira said again. She reached out and got a hand on his shoulder.

A head taller than her and he recoiled, twisting in his chair to avoid her touch.

“Sorry,” she said immediately. “Sorry, but… Can I get you anything? Water? Tea?”

“No,” Martin said. “I can’t, I… I have to go. M-my mother. She’s dead.”

Basira’s stomach dropped. She remembered going out for drinks with him a couple of times. Melanie had invited him, insisting he was a nice guy who needed to get out more. Three-beers-Martin had checked his phone often and admitted he was late calling his mum but that she probably wouldn’t notice, then vanished for a few minutes and returned looking even more miserable than he did now. The front desk at the home she’d been living in wouldn’t put him through. Melanie had given him a friendly arm punch, a shot of Glenfiddich, and then rested her head on his shoulder and said he was good to keep trying. Basira had watched them not look at each other but each of them had smiled in such a sad way, thinking of parents probably. Distant parents. 

Now, in the Archives, Basira thought of her own mother, who had been quiet but always ready to listen to her only daughter. She pretended for a moment that was Martin’s mum and she told him, “Oh, Martin. I’m sorry.”

She had seen his face when she’d returned to work, a couple weeks after she’d escaped the Unknowing. Basira was only one to make it back in one piece, breathing, moving. Tim had been… unrecognizable. Jon had been whole, to a degree that was actually more horrifying than Tim’s remains or Daisy’s absence, but he was nothing but a medical marvel and Basira was _here_. For just a second, Martin had looked _angry_ to see her. Then he’d sighed, it had smoothed over, and he’d murmured, “I’m really glad you’re okay, Basira.” 

Now he looked up at her and his anger was sustained. His mouth opened like he was going to tell her to fuck off with her false pity—she knew it had sounded condescending when she wanted it to sound compassionate—but then he stopped. He stood up, looming for a second. “I’ll be back in tomorrow, probably. I have to deal with this, though. Could you tell—? If someone asks?”

“Sure,” Basira said, and she knew she wasn’t going to have to tell anyone because no one was going to ask. Melanie was ‘taking a personal day’ that could last all week if she was in a mood, and no one at the Institute wanted to come down to the Archives. “And— Hey. Martin.”

Martin struggled into his coat. “Yeah?”

“If you need anything, let me know. All right?” She did her best to sound sincere. It came out brusque, a little bossy, but she tried. 

For a moment, he wavered, looking at her with dry eyes that she noticed for the first time were a pale shade of brown, magnified behind his glasses. He smiled at her, small but earnest. “I… I appreciate that.” He turned away. “Thanks, Basira.”

* * *

Melanie had a new research project. She was looking into weaponry on company time. 

Another text from Georgie, asking about her evening plans. Melanie considered the targets she’d set up around her flat, the deep gouges growing closer to the center of the bulls-eyes. There’d been noise complaints last week, though. She could take a night off from target practice. She texted Georgie that she was free.

Martin was at his desk and Melanie nearly screamed at him. Not from fear, but to _not sneak up on her, Jesus_. Her leg was hurting so she was already on edge. She had barely drawn in her breath to shout before she saw he was crying.

“Martin?” she said, a snap in her voice (because, seriously, would it kill him to make noise?).

The inside lenses of his glasses were spotted with tears. He wiped at them with a thumb, creating smeary bifocals. “Yes?”

“What is it? Did Elias—? No, he’s gone. Peter? Did he say some shit to you? Wait, fuck, is it about Jon?”

“No, Melanie,” Martin said. He sounded tired, his voice scratchy. “I… My mum died.”

“Oh,” Melanie said. She relaxed a bit. “I’m sorry that happened. That really, really sucks.”

“Yeah. It’s kind of a lot to deal with right now.”

“Yeah, it would be. Um. Shit. Do you need anything?”

A few more tears welled in Martin’s eyes but he scraped them away carefully. “I don’t think so?”

“Do you want to get drunk?” Melanie offered. “I can get you drunk. It’s been a while since we went out.” Her phone buzzed gently, reminding her she’d told Georgie she was free. She could worry about that in a minute.

Helpfully for her, Martin said, “I don’t really drink much, lately.”

“Losing a parent’s hard,” Melanie began. 

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Melanie took a deep breath in through her nose, trying not to snarl at the interruption. “My _point_ was that losing a parent is hard, so you should let me get you drunk and get it out of your system.”

“I, I appreciate it, Melanie, but—“

“At least take a half day.”

“I already took Tuesday and Wednesday,” Martin said.

Melanie blinked and snuck a peek at her phone screen. There was a text from Georgie (don’t look, not the right time) as well as confirmation that today was Thursday. “Oh. Right.”

“Were you not in the Archive?”

“I was… in the field. Doing field work.”

“You can tell me if you weren’t in, Melanie. I’m not your boss.”

“No, you just report to the boss.” Melanie felt a bubble of anger rise. Martin was crying again, like he hadn’t even noticed his eyes were leaking. It was starting to annoy her that he was shutting these ideas down as she was trying to find a way for him to grieve. She hadn’t suggested punching anything; though that had helped a bit when she was dealing with her dad’s death, she could make an educated guess that Martin was disinclined to punch his feelings out.

“Yeah,” Martin said. “But I don’t think he cares much about what happens down here. He’s not _Elias_.”

“No, that is a point in his favor. He _did_ kill some people, though.”

Martin winced. “I really hope they’re not actually… Look, I’m putting a stop to that, all right? I sent out a memo.”

Melanie snorted at that. “Memo? What’d it say, ‘Do not approach the new smiling monster-boss, he’ll disappear you completely and you’ll never be found?’”

Martin blushed. “Not— It wasn’t exactly that.”

Melanie reminded herself that the man had just lost his mother and made an effort to speak more kindly. “Listen, Martin, that’s not the point I was trying to make. Take some time. If you want to get trashed or hit something, let me know. I guess Basira could, I dunno, give you some facts and pamphlets? Maybe try therapy?”

Martin took his glasses off and cleaned them on his shirt, wiping the last tearstains from his face. “I appreciate it, Melanie. But right now, working is going to distract me from… from all this. And that sounds good. I’d rather not think about it.”

“All right,” Melanie said. She considered, then said, “You want a hug?”

Martin stared at her. She wasn’t sure how bad his vision was, but he was two desk-lengths away—she might be nothing but a blur. His mouth opened slightly, then closed. He put his glasses back on and nodded a little warily, holding his arms away from his sides.

Melanie hugged hard. Martin was soft and she couldn’t quite get her arms all the way around him to _really_ crush his ribcage and he was much, much taller than her, but she gave it her all. There was no point in half-assing a hug. She had to turn her face to the side or she’d be smothered in his chest. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and she felt him take a shuddering breath. She braced for tears hitting the top of her head, but all he did was let his breath out slowly and steadily.

“Right,” he said. She felt the words buzz around his ribcage. 

“Sorry, Martin,” she said. “Hope you find something that helps.”

He stepped away. “Thanks, Melanie.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m five-foot-and-a-bit and remember what it’s like to hug someone well over six feet tall. A sternum can feel like it’s gonna smash your nose.
> 
> This chapter was inspired from dathan’s The Missing Tapes BINGO card on tumblr (they’re not affiliated with this fic/me in any way, I just found the list and liked the prompts even though I filled… barely any, whooooops).


	20. December 2017

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Flesh attack on the Magnus Institute. Descriptions of gore and violence and body horror. This is almost certainly the most yucky chapter I’ll write for this workplace series. Happy Halloween!

Basira had been dealing with a headache all day. She was out of her emergency desk-stash of headache medication and only the librarian Hannah and the Storage crew would talk to Archives anymore, but either way it was was a bit of a trek for a couple paracetamol. She drank Irish Breakfast, wondering if it was a caffeine thing. The ache wouldn’t budge.

“Sleep on your neck wrong?” Melanie asked in the breakroom as they waited for coffee together.

“Maybe,” Basira said. She’d been rubbing the back of her neck and slid her hand out from under her khimar. She wondered if the camp bed she’d set up in Document Storage was even worse than the one that had been down there since Jon started as Archivist. It didn’t feel like a tweaked neck. It was a buzz, an itch at the base of her skull. Her eyes ached, too. “Can’t really tell. I might be getting sick?”

Melanie frowned in sympathy. She continued cleaning the chipped nail polish off her thumb with a switchblade.

Out of nowhere, Basira felt her skin ripple, like goosebumps had shot up her forearms and all the way to her back. Melanie stiffened as well, her head was cocked like she’d heard something. Her eyebrows began to rise. 

Basira watched Melanie rip open one of the drawers in the breakroom and pull out a steak knife. The corner of her mouth was dragging up in to a smile when someone with too many ropey muscles and too many legs popped through the breakroom doorway. Melanie’s wrist snapped forward. The steak knife lodged in the muscle-thing’s throat and the sound that it made was gurgling surprise, not pain. Then Melanie was on it, hand wrapped around the slippery hilt of the knife, tugging the blade through the thing’s body. It carved through like it was cutting hard cheese; a bit stubborn but Melanie was hauling on the knife—her feet came off the ground for a moment—and it dragged through in a zig zag. Blood came out, and eventually some viscera, but Basira had sat through a couple dissections for some of the more gruesome cases she’d worked and she could spot at least three livers spilling out amid yards of intestines.

Melanie’s feet planted on the blood-slick breakroom tiles. She was humming a steady note of tension.

“What?” Basira managed to say. All of this had happened in a few seconds. Her headache was holding steady and it felt like every hair on her body was standing up. From a quiet, logical, cold part of her own mind, she noticed that the muscle-thing was folding up on knees that bent the wrong way.

“There’s an attack,” Melanie said. She sounded satisfied, with an undercurrent of simmering rage. Basira realized that Melanie had been expecting some kind of seige on the Institute for months now. Melanie said, “Stick with me, okay?”

“Right,” Basira said. “We… Oh.” She slammed a hand on the fire alarm and followed Melanie at a dead sprint out of the breakroom, down the hall, and into the Archives. There was screaming coming from somewhere else in the building—several screams. She couldn’t worry about the rest of the Institute staff yet. First priority was to get armed.

There were already muscle-monsters in the Archives. Basira dodged a clumsy arm that tried to reel her towards a creature that had its face in the center of its body. She realized she was swearing, low and continuous under her breath, as she raced to her desk and fumbled at the back of her chair. No paracetamol, but she did have a loaded gun. 

She flicked off the safety and fired like a machine, eyes narrowed in focus. Monsters fell, eventually. She stopped aiming for the places she’d expect humans to have vital organs and just tried to hit a scattershot across the bodies. The creatures were more interested in destruction than her, tearing through document boxes and crushing tapes in their warped, double- and triple-jointed hands. They leapt out of Document Storage, tumbled out of Jon’s office, and barely glanced at her as she fired into their meaty bodies. Basira felled a couple, but had to change the clip in her gun more frequently than she would have liked to. She only had a few backups. 

She fumbled for her keyring to get the second gun (Daisy’s gun) out of her desk, and came up firing on a muscle-monster with two perfect French braids framing a milkmaid-like face as it scuttled towards her on all fours, each foot a hand with far too many thumbs. Even with two bullets in the face, the thing kept coming until Basira dropped her gun and, shoulder popping with the strain, chucked her desk chair at it. The monster landed wrong on an elbow and dragged itself in circles until Basira put three more bullets in various places. She stopped to breathe for a second and check where the next threat would come from. The screaming from upstairs had died out. Unclear if that was good or not.

Melanie was humming some tune now, sharp and bright, as she went after the biggest muscle-monster of them all. It was wearing a polo and athletic shorts, and a badge clipped to its chest read ‘Jared.’ The fact that it had so many extra arms that the polo was mostly shreds of fabric clinging to an overstretched collar made it that much more horrifying. Blood leaked from a few stumps where hands had probably been (though who knows what appendages the thing normally had). Melanie’s knife flashed, buried in its chest and then dragged out just as quickly, and another spurt of blood sprayed the empty desk where Martin had worked until his move. Basira growled, remembering he would be well out of this shit.

“Basir— _Melanie_?” 

Basira turned and saw Martin, crisply dressed and staring with his mouth open from the doorway into the Archives. He’d gotten some new glasses that made him look older somehow, the rims thick and sitting oddly on his round face. He’d also lost the weird ponytail he’d had for as long as Basira had known him. She realized, again in the part of her mind that was watching all of this carefully because it felt like a pivotal moment, that she hadn’t seen him outside of all-staff meetings (which were down to every other month, with no appearance from the elusive Head of the Institute, because Peter Lukas hated the Institute staff talking to each other) since he’d moved out of the Archives.

“I pulled the alarm so everyone would get _out_ , Martin,” Basira said. She turned and shot three bullets into a muscle-monster that was trying to climb its way over one of the huge storage shelves. The monster dropped to the ground. The sounds coming from behind the shelf suggested that Melanie and her massive muscle-monster opponent had moved deeper into the Archive.

“Everyone’s evacuating,” Martin said, still staring around at the gore. “Vihaan and Sonja got the ones that made it to Storage, and Diana, Tom and I got the ones in the Library. Didn’t notice any in Admin, but that’s Peter’s territory. What did you all do? You have a gun still? They don’t make you turn those in when you leave the force?”

“I have several guns,” Basira said, checking how many bullets she had left. “And I don’t know how monsters got here.”

“Rosie was on break but the new receptionist called up about weird visitors asking how to get to the Archive and I—“

“They _asked at the front desk_?” Basira said. “How—? Martin, get out if you aren’t going to help! Shut the goddamn door!”

Martin stepped in and shut the door behind him, pressing his back against it as he stared at the lumps of monster scattered around the assistants’ work area. There were thick, meaty sounds coming from the maze of shelves, a deep and gurgling voice wailing, then a weird drone that drilled into Basira’s headache. A door creaked open, somewhere in the Archive. The gurgling wail trailed away, like it was receding down a tunnel very quickly. The drone did not stop.

“Who the fuck are you?” Melanie’s voice said from the shelves, suspicious and furious.

“What an _interesting_ question,” said a woman’s voice. It sounded like a sickly-sweet saleswoman, but with an edge that made Basira’s teeth ache. “I’m more of a ‘what,’ but you can call me Helen. And you’re welcome for the rescue from the Flesh.”

“Oh, shit,” Martin whispered.

“What the fuck?” Basira mouthed back. He shook his head, eyes huge with fear.

“I had it handled!” Melanie was shouting.

“Of course you did,” said Helen, kind and patronizing. “How many hearts did you get him in? Three?”

“I can keep going,” Melanie snarled. “How many hearts do you have?”

“That’s no way to treat a savior,” Helen said. Basira could hear the exaggerated pout in her voice. She checked her gun again and crept towards the shelves. Martin followed her, trainers silent on the linoleum flooring.

Melanie said, “What do you want?”

“I already have what I want. I’ve _helped_.”

Basira poked her head around the corner of the shelf and saw a door open into… it wasn’t entirely clear. The door was just in the middle of the aisle, unattached to anything. A curly-haired woman in a sickeningly-striped pantsuit stood in the doorway, leaning out but holding on to the edges with her… fingertips…

“Fuck,” Basira said softly. Both woman looked at her.

“Hello,” sang the woman in the doorway. “I’m Helen.”

“Christ,” Martin hissed behind her. “Her hands— Sasha said— _Christ_.”

“Ooooh, that’s familiar. Martin, right? We’ve met before. Well, I wasn’t _Helen_ before, but you were yourself. Not too confusing, is it?”

“N-not… Well, a bit,” Martin said. “Um. Nice to meet you again?”

Helen smiled… and it just kept going, creeping up her face and warping the muscles of her cheeks to make room for all the teeth. Martin squeaked. Melanie let out a ‘huh’ of surprise. Basira felt her trigger finger twitch but kept the barrel pointed at the ground. 

“And you?” Helen said, turning that wide grin on Basira.

“What?” Basira said.

“Who are _you_? Since we’re doing introductions.”

“Basira.”

“Oh? A new eye for the Institute?”

“No. Just… keeping things together for now.”

“Waiting for the Archivist?” Helen’s sympathy was smothering, facetious. “It’s hard when he’s out. Makes everything a bit more vulnerable.” Her gaze slid to the left and Basira risked following her gaze to look at Martin. He was watching Helen, expressionless, hands clenched by his sides.

“We’re doing all right,” Basira said, drawing Helen’s attention back to herself. “Me and Melanie have it under control.”

“ _Do_ you,” Helen said.

Melanie had been head-weaving for a few moments. She asked, “What’s back there?” as she pointed through the doorway Helen was still mostly blocking from view.

Helen looked over her shoulder casually, back into what seemed to be a hallway that stretched impossibly behind her, past the limits of the walls and shelves of the Archive. She said, “Me.”

“…Oh…kay,” Melanie said. “Is that thing going to be stuck in the hallway?”

“Jared, the Boneturner? Oh, yes. He’ll be in the maze of me for a good long while. One thing you can say about the Flesh, though they’re a bit inelegant, they’re certainly durable.” She giggled a little and it fizzed like champagne, which was really not helpful for Basira’s headache.

“Boneturner?” Melanie said. “That’s… an interesting title.”

“I suppose it’s a good name, isn’t it?” Helen agreed. “He’s certainly skilled, I’ll give him that. Bit difficult to ply his trade when he’s stuck somewhere with no flesh to manipulate, though. Don’t worry about him, he’s dull. I’m _much_ more interesting.”

“Yeah,” Basira said. “Is there something you want right now?”

“Right now?” Helen said, tapping her chin with one long, long finger. The ripple of knuckles was dizzying. She said, “No, I don’t think so. I’d just like to be a resource to you. And I thought I should introduce myself, if you’ll permit us to be neighbors.”

“Neighbors?” Melanie said.

“Permit?” Basira said at the same time. “So you _do_ want something.”

Helen grinned at them all. “I’d like to set up in the tunnels. Just have a door there, for convenience.”

“Why?” Martin asked, drawing the word out nervously.

“Why, to help out, Martin!” Helen giggled again and Basira did her best not to flinch. “While I must admit it would be interesting to see the Archives to go the way of Leitner’s proud, stupid little library, I think it’s far more interesting to see what all your plans a schemes and secrets become if you’re allowed to pursue them.” Her smile shrank at the edges, returning to something that was more possible in the realm of human facial structure. For a moment, she looked a little wistful. “I suppose we’re all just waiting, aren’t we?” Her smile split her face again. “Much better to be in good company.”

Melanie looked back at Basira, eyebrows raised in a question. Basira glanced at Martin. He was looking away from them all, shoulders set. He wouldn’t be any help. 

One of those overwhelming moments of loss hit Basira like a slap of cold water and she wished Daisy were here. Having someone else on her side that she trusted was a luxury she didn’t have anymore. She hadn’t realized it was a luxury.

“We could use an ally, I suppose,” Basira said slowly. She flicked on the safety catch of her gun.

“So I can start moving my stuff in?” Helen said. “Wonderful! Which desk do I get?”

“What _stuff_?” Basira asked.

Helen outright laughed and Basira was swaying now, the pounding in her head pulsing along with the ripples of Helen’s laughter. 

“Just one door, Basira, don’t you worry,” Helen said at last, wiping a tear away with one her manicured nails. “It was only a little joke. So serious! You can come find me any time you want to chat.” She backed up into the impossible hallway behind her and tapped on the yellow door. “Just keep an eye out for me, all right? Be polite. Give a knock.” 

Somewhere between the door creaking shut and the latch catching, the door vanished with a shimmer like an oil slick on a puddle.

“Jesus,” Melanie said.

“Martin, you know her?” Basira asked. The pressure at her temples had eased and it was starting to get easier to think clearly.

“She was Michael,” Martin said. His voice was remote, dispassionate. “The Distortion. I… Tim and I got lost in the hallways there for a while. Back when you thought Jon killed Gertrude. It’s a labyrinth.”

“ _Jesus_ ,” Melanie said again.

“She used to be Helen Richardson. I remember when she gave her statement.” He had that sad look that meant he was thinking about Jon.

“So, can’t trust her then?” Basira said.

“I mean, maybe? She saved Jon from the Circus when they kidnapped him but she’s… she’s not really _safe_. She’s not Helen Richardson anymore, she’s part of the Spiral, or ‘It’s Not What It Is,’ if you listen to Peter. It sounds a bit too Harry Potter to me. ‘You-Know-Who,’ all that.”

“Yeah. Overdramatic,” Basira said. She walked back around the edge of the shelves and surveyed the wrecked Archive. There were lumps of dead muscle-monster and streaks of drying blood and overturned desks and crushed storage boxes and streamers of unwound recording tape. “Well. Shit.”

“Who do we even call for cleanup?” Melanie asked. She pulled a knife out of the pocket of her jeans (was it different from the one she’d used to fight the Flesh? Basira couldn’t tell) and started cleaning blood from under her nails. 

“I’ll talk to Peter,” Martin said. 

“Good luck,” Melanie said sarcastically. “The cleaners are gonna be _pissed_.”

“Yeah.” Martin sounded defeated already. “But. Well, _I_ don’t want to figure out all the biohazard stuff we’d have to deal with for this.”

Melanie snorted. “They’d better be quiet about it.” She marched off, knife held loosely in her fist. 

“Melanie?” Martin called. “Where are you going?”

“To check if there are any more of those Flesh monsters,” Melanie said, not breaking stride. Basira noticed the faint limp she’d had for months now was finally gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kept sitting staring at the blank space in the Scrivener file for this chapter in the overall fic structure, too intimidated to write a battle, but then I wrote 2k one midnight (the Flesh is fun if I don’t let myself think about it too much) and brought in Helen! She’s so ominous! 
> 
> I have ideas about Basira growing more aligned with the Eye… getting the beginnings of power… getting to Gertrude Robinson-levels, but without reading any statements on tape… That would be a whole other fic I'm not going to write, but it lives in my brain.


	21. March 2018

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Archives crew (at this point down to Basira, Melanie, and Jon) is stuck in a horrible work slumber party. Everyone dresses unprofessionally. Jon is awkward.

For a time, Martin had lived in the Archive. Jon remembered noticing the differing quality of quiet when he had to watch how late he stayed and how loud he was because someone else was, presumably, sleeping in Document Storage.

Now, Jon had crammed so many of his possessions into his new apartment, he could barely fit. It was an overpriced storage unit to replace the actual storage unit he’d lost by being comatose for six months. It was full of boxed memories of his childhood or his grandmother’s childhood. It also wasn’t safe.

Jon, like just about every other person working in the Archives, was sleeping at the office more often than not. He’d leave on weekends and the odd weekday, but overall he stayed. His world had shrunk to one corner of a massive building. The month he’d spent travelling felt like an odd dream. London itself was unfathomably big and wide and full of strange, sudden danger. He lived out of a duffel that he took to the coin-op every Sunday and he brushed his teeth in the wide, fluorescent-lit restroom at odd hours so he wouldn’t run into anyone else. 

It was unavoidable, though. While the Archives felt removed from the rest of the world, it wasn’t. Vihaan brought a couple of trash bags to the alley where Jon would crouch against the bricks and smoke a cigarette. They looked at each other in awkward silence until Vihaan had binned his stuff. He just stood there, though, watching Jon smoke. Eventually, he said, “Silk Cut?”

“…Yes?”

Vihaan made a face.

“My ex doesn’t like them either,” Jon said. He wasn’t sure why he said that. He’d never told anyone at the Magnus Institute about Georgie, that he’d been in love and been loved and still remembered that fragile joy with a kind of longing that he couldn’t linger on for too long. It had felt unprofessional, somehow, to mention someone he’d dated, though Tim talked about his dates and Sasha mentioned exes with some fondness from time to time. 

Vihaan’s eyebrows were raised at this unexpected sharing, too, but he just nodded and said, “Your ex has good taste. Those things aren’t worth what they do to you.” 

“Mm,” Jon said. He’d died once. He wasn’t too worried about lung cancer. He Knew Vihaan’s son was a smoker, and his father had smoked roll-ups; the smell of certain shag still made Vihaan’s heart ache with missing his dad. 

Jon stubbed his cigarette out thoroughly, contemplated the pack, then levered himself up to go in and read a statement. Vihaan held the door for him. Jon backed right out when he saw Melanie limping down the hall towards them. 

“Uh,” Jon said. “You— you go ahead.”

He heard Vihaan hail Melanie, heard the exhaustion in her voice as she explained what she needed from Storage to reconcile with statements. There was the sound of retreating footsteps. He went back into the Institute when the halls were quiet.

Stuck at the Institute, now with an abundance of time—he hadn’t simply done the Head Archivist job since 2016, there had always been something else in the background—Jon caught glimpses of people who hated or distrusted or feared him. He didn’t want Melanie to have to see him now. He stayed in his office, kipping on a couch someone had dragged in there during his half-a-year absence. He waited until he couldn’t hear anyone out in the bullpen before he’d emerge to make tea, scrub off a day’s grime in the sink, walk the halls, smoke, visit the Library… He, Basira, and Melanie suddenly had achieved a sort of human intimacy he hadn’t had since living with Georgie, who had loved him. It was unsettling. 

Basira caught him in the breakroom, wearing a jumper that had been a loaner from Tim that he could never bring himself to return and a long skirt that had been Georgie’s before she said she didn’t want it anymore. He was waiting for the tea to brew and idly Knowing that Georgie had lied to him; she’d wanted to give him clothes but thought it would seem overbearing. She’d wanted him to wear things that made him happy. So few of his own clothes did. They were just coverings for his body that projected an image he wanted. Clothes covered and warmed and hid, they didn’t inspire delight. But Georgie had wanted him to feel happy, so she gave him her skirt made out of sweatshirt material because it was basically a big blanket for his legs that he could walk around in. And it did make him happy to wear it.

Jon smiled faintly to himself and tucked his hands in the massive skirt pockets to keep his knuckles warm.

“Nice look,” Basira said, surprisingly close to his shoulder.

“Ah! Oh. Hi, Basira.”

She gave him a blank look, her own hair well-hidden by her hijab (khimar, he Knew suddenly). She was dressed in stained sweatpants and a shirt that looked like a rattier version of the Henleys she’d bought for him to wear when he’d lost his own spare clothes in the Archives. She’d bought him some disturbingly bright collared shirts, too. He hadn’t had much choice but to wear them until he could dig through old boxes and find something less… vibrant. What was it about him that made women immediately want to change how he dressed?

As she refilled the kettle he’d drained for his mug of tea, Jon glanced at the clock on the wall. “Um, good afternoon?”

“Hasn’t worked since December,” Basira said. “It’s six in the morning.”

“Is it? Damn, I was going to sleep for a bit. I should, uh. Change for work.”

Basira sighed. “Losing a sleep schedule isn’t healthy, Jon.”

“No, I suppose not.”

She eyed his jumper. “Bit big on you.”

“Tim’s. From, well. When I’d just started as Head of the Archives. We went out drinking one night and it was, it was rather cold, but he said drinking made him warm, so. He let me borrow it…” Jon looked away as Basira watched him. He could feel himself worrying the sleeves but couldn’t bring himself to stop messing with the loose threads, or to stop talking. “It’s really comfortable? I kept forgetting to give it back and he never mentioned it. To me, at least—I think he and Martin and Sasha had a joke about me stealing clothes.”

“Mm.”

They stood in silence while the electric kettle made some thoughtful warming noises. 

Jon pulled the teabag out his tea and dug for drink-doctoring supplies. “Sugar?”

“No.”

“…honey?”

“No. Green tea.”

“Ah.”

Another silence. Jon blew on his tea. Basira waited for the water to boil again.

“You got the memo about the new data compliance stuff?” Jon said.

Basira snorted. “Yeah, I saw it. We should have a meeting about it, but we won’t.”

“Not Lonely enough.”

“Yeah. Don’t think it’ll affect our work in Archives, really. I suppose it’s good we’re so archaic here; I don’t think we even can accept statements submitted remotely.”

“True. Yonnik will have it the worst, I suppose.” Basira frowned, confused, and he explained, “Trying to adjust all the donation forms to fit with the new regulations and such.”

“Ah, that’s right. Fundraising and Development? That’s Olivia, now. She’s the new Head.”

“Really? Oh. When did Yonnik leave?”

Basira gave him a look. “Flesh attack, Jon.”

“…Oh, god.”

“Dunno if he’s dead, there wasn’t a memo—“ she spat the word “—but he never came back to work, so.”

Jon stared at her. The kettle was steaming when Basira flicked it off and poured her mug. Jon asked, “How are we still hiring new people to work here?”

Basira shrugged, her mouth a bitter twist. “People need jobs. Academia’s hard to break into.”

“True enough. I thought the place I worked _before_ was bad…”

Basira huffed, the closest she’d come to laughing these days. “There’s always something worse.”

More silence. Basira watched her tea brew.

“How’s Melanie?” Jon asked.

“You’ve asked me that before. A couple days ago.”

“Yes, but… I keep my distance.”

Basira blew out her breath in annoyance. “Pissed, still. She could probably stand the sight of you, if she had to.”

“Oh. Good?”

“It’s an improvement,” Basira admitted after frowning at her mug for a while. “I mean, yeah, she’s mad, but… She doesn’t heal has fast as _you_ , of course, but she’s responding well to antibiotics and she’s sleeping more than she used to. I used to hear her all hours, just sharpening knives or prowling around.” Basira let out another one of her huffing, scornful laughs. “You show up, do some secret surgery on her, she stops walking the Institute at night.”

“Good timing on my part, I suppose.”

Basira glared at him over the rim of her mug, then rolled her eyes. “You aren’t funny.”

Jon smirked. He Knew she was lying.

“You don’t wear your glasses anymore,” Basira said.

Jon froze. He had thought about them, off and on. He’d left them at the bed and breakfast before the Unknowing and then he’d been in hospital for half a year, so god knew where they were now. Quietly, he told Basira, “I don’t need them now. My vision’s... perfect.”

“Mm. Makes sense. Useful.”

He shot her glare out of the corner of his eye but she was walking away now, back to the Archives. Without meaning too, Jon read the backside of her sweatpants and choked on his tea. Large capital letters read FUCK OFF AND DIE. 

Basira glanced back over her shoulder, radiating satisfaction. “Wondered if you’d notice.”

Jon was still coughing when Rosie popped open the other door to the breakroom, gave him a scan, and sighed. “Why do you Archives crew think you can wear whatever you want to work?”

“Sorry,” he gasped, “sorry, I’ll, I’m going to change, I swear.”

“Are you sick?”

“No, no, just… tea went down wrong.”

Rosie snorted scornfully and clicked her way over to the kettle in her sensible one-inch heels. “Any hot water left?”

Jon backed away as she rattled the kettle and glared at him. “Sorry, Rosie.”

“Of course,” she said with deep disgust. She turned to the sink and ran the water, and Jon made his escape back to the depths of the Archives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jon stealing clothes and him wearing Henleys are a gift to myself. I am a simple person with simple needs and the needs are sharing clothes with loved ones and more people wearing Henleys.
> 
> I was actually working for an international organization when the European General Data Protection Regulation went into effect, so remembering it existed and working it into this EXTREMELY self-indulgent, detail-focused workplace fic was delicious.


	22. July 2018

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daisy and Jon, bonding over trying not to give into their fear-gods. Little bit of body-image stuff, but it's not a focus.

Daisy’s legs ached all the time. At first, she thought it was trying to build them up too quickly, after months of inactivity in the Buried. She walked slowly, carefully, with crutches and then without. But then she ached more and more, in a way that also _itched_ , and she realized she wanted to run.

Daisy usually napped against Basira’s desk, or Jon’s. None of them said anything, but Basira would drag her into Document Storage around bedtime, or Jon would have her sit on the couch while he caught up on paperwork and she’d wake up with his jacket draped over her arms while her legs kicked at the air. Even Melanie would lend her a sleeping bag—she said she didn’t need hers much, that she was sleeping at a friend’s place more often. They were careful around her. Daisy was itching to move. 

Slipping away from the Institute should have been difficult, since they didn’t open until 8am and the Archives team spent most nights in a tense slumber party. It wasn’t difficult, though, with a bit of planning. Melanie left her rolled up sleeping bag, so she wouldn’t be back to the Archives tonight. Daisy had waited until Basira went to bed, then made Jon help her with some of her physio exercises until he was worn out and succumbed to sleep on his office couch. No stamina in that man. She knew it was partially because he was keeping away from people’s trauma, he wasn’t as well-fed as he should be. 

Daisy snuck out the side door that led to the skip and tried jogging in the grey pre-dawn. Her trainers were stiff and new, Basira’s athletic shorts too big on her hips, Jon’s dorky podcast T-shirt dangerously close to fitting her withered frame. Daisy was used to being sturdy. Finding herself thin enough to fit Jon’s clothes (though the sleeves pinched her underarms and the side-seams creaked) was… concerning.

None of that mattered as she took her first steps. Once Daisy started moving, all she could hear was the blood pounding in her ears. 

She burst from the alley and took off down the sidewalk. Her eyes darted, checking angles and searching for someone vulnerable. Her breath was heavy. She felt a growl in her throat. Her eyes opened wide. Everything sharpened. Her heart beat faster, faster. Her legs ached to _lunge_.

She had to run herself into a wall to stop herself, finally. Her palms scraped on the brickwork as she gasped. Her feet hurt, her borrowed shirt was soaked in perspiration, and it took far too long to catch her breath. She’d gone through her exercise playlist more than three times and hadn’t heard any of it. The streets were crowded and people were watching her nervously as they went about their day. 

Daisy made it back to the Institute on shaking legs. She was still dripping sweat and heaving when she leaned on the door to the Archives and let her body weight push it opene. Jon was moving to his office, cup of tea held carefully level. He saw her. His eyes went wide and he froze.

Weak. Afraid of her, surprised. Distracted, hands in use.

Daisy lunged.

The fact that she’d run steadily for four hours caught her. She staggered and dropped to all fours, the cold linoleum floor jarring her knees and wrists.

“Daisy!” Jon said. He set his tea on the nearest desk, ignoring when it slopped over the sides. He moved toward her and she bared her teeth at him, furious to be seen like this. Then she stopped, closed her eyes, and breathed. 

The blood was still up, the pounding in her ears, but she could tune that out. Not with music, but with a few breaths. A few more. Thinking of nothing. Hearing the soft squeak of Jon’s shoes on the floor as he rushed to her. He was a friend now. He was.

“Are you all right?” he asked, dropping to crouch beside her.

“I’m fine,” Daisy said. There was barely a buzz in her voice. She cleared her throat like it was just a cough but she knew it was the Hunt. She sat back on her heels and repeated, “I’m fine.”

“You’re, ah… Oh,” Jon said. He took his hands from her shoulders and wiped them on his threadbare slacks, looking faintly disgusted.

Daisy used one too-tight sleeve to smear more sweat from her lip. “Went for a run.”

“I can see— Is that my shirt?”

Daisy grinned at his disgruntled expression. “Want it back?”

“Not right now,” he said. “After you launder it, maybe. Here.” He moved to help her up but as he rose, his eyes went unfocused. He sat on the floor next to her very quickly. “Uh. In a moment.”

“Head rush?”

Jon closed his eyes. “Mm.”

Daisy peered closer. “…Hungry?”

He swallowed. The scar on his neck, her mark on him, flexed with the motion.

“How long?”

Jon shrugged. “A while.”

“…Nothing?”

“Just statements. They’re a bit… bland. But they help.”

“Trail mix,” Daisy joked.

“More like year-old crisps,” Jon said. He cracked an eyelid in time to see her stick her tongue out in disgust. He smiled at her, a crooked little twist of his mouth that was so obviously _fond_ , it made Daisy duck her head. 

She patted his leg a few times, felt him twitch nervously under her hand. “How difficult is it?”

“…I don’t really leave the Archives, so. Not too difficult. The Eye’s got you all, it doesn’t need me to dig into you. But, ah. Well. I shouldn’t leave the Archives.”

“Hard to control?”

“I, I suppose? It’s easier to not even try. Avoid temptation. I don’t…” Jon took a shuddery breath and said, more firmly, “I don’t want to hurt anyone. Else.”

Daisy shrugged, careful to avoid eye contact. “Is it a compulsion or something? Like you can’t control yourself?”

Jon was quiet but Daisy still didn’t look at him. Finally, he said, “How long were you running for?”

“…A while.”

“After anyone?”

“ _No_.”

“Good. You’re quite intimidating.”

Daisy nodded at her knees, which she’d drawn up to her chest. “Glad to hear it.”

She felt Jon lean closer. They both had their backs against the nearest desk—Daisy didn’t know who’s it had been, but it wasn’t Baisra or Melanie’s. She almost jumped when she felt Jon’s shoulder bump hers. He was a bit taller than her, when he stood up straight, but it was mostly leg. Their torsos were about the same length. They sat, shoulder to shoulder, as the sweat cooled and the quiet of the Archives moved into Daisy’s head.

“How do you… not?” Jon asked eventually.

It took a moment for Daisy to assemble her thoughts. “Blood’s always there,” she said. “ _The_ blood, the call to hunt. The thrill of a chase. I want it. But I can’t listen to that. I have to find some kind of quiet. Hear that instead. Find some peace.”

“Peace and quiet,” Jon said. He sounded like he was repeating her own words, but it also sounded like a prayer. When Daisy glanced over at him, out of the corner of her eye, she saw he had his head tipped back against the desk, looking up at the ceiling. The muscles around his eyes were twitching oddly, controlling some eye-movements she couldn’t see. He looked like he was Seeing something, or trying to Know.

“Listen to the quiet,” she said softly. Jon closed his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Love Daisy getting a new catchphrase to deal with the Hunt.
> 
> Their friendship was one of my favorite things about the fourth season and Jon getting Daisy out of the Buried is still one of my favorite episodes. The writing in this show is so friggin good.


	23. October 2018

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Other people learn about Jon and Martin running off. The aftermath of the Hunt and the Stranger attacking the Institute. The end of the world from an outside perspective. 
> 
> Almost all the OCs I made/expanded upon have their own, separate Bad Ends (for now, cuz they’re trapped in the fear hellscape). Also, one OC who has been established to be shitty is briefly shitty about Martin's appearance, but is shut down.

Sonja let the sword drop from her fingers and stuck each hand into the opposite armpit. “ _Fuck_.”

“Yeah,” Vihaan said, voice cracked from screaming. Gilpin was bandaging their own leg and just grunted once in acknowledgement.

“What do you think she—it—wanted?” Sonja said.

“Oh, so it wasn’t just me?” Gilpin said. “That did look like a _very_ fucked up version of Sasha James, yes? The Archival Assistant who’s been missing for over a year?”

“Yeah, it did,” Vihaan whispered, trying to save his voice.

“Think I got it,” Sonja said, kicking at the tarnished sword she’d pulled from Storage.

“You didn’t,” Gilpin said.

“How could you tell? You were busy with the old man.”

“Basira was distracting him and I looked around when that thing swept through. You got some hair, that was it. Scared it, though. That screaming sword is awful.”

“Clipped me with it,” Vihaan whispered.

“Yes, I said sorry,” Sonja said. “Christ, that thing makes your hands hurt.”

“Sonic vibration in the hilt,” Gilpin said, tying off a bandage. They patted their handiwork happily and levered themself to their feet. “It looked like you were holding a jackhammer.”

“Did anyone see what was the thing that got the woman? The thing that Basira was protecting?”

“ _That_ was the woman, the myth, the legend, Daisy Tonner,” said Chae-won, who had a retractable baton in her hand as she swept through the foyer. “I’m not seeing anyone else. Katie and Tom took Rosie to the A&E ‘round the corner. Those bastards fucked her right up. And no one’s seen fucking Lukas, or Sims, or Hussain. Or Blackwood, but that’s hardly surprising.”

“Basira was there,” Gilpin said. “She ran out after the old man and, uh, whatever that thing was that Daisy turned into.”

“I saw Jon,” Vihaan whispered, but Chae-won was sidling towards the elevators and didn’t hear him.

“When did you see Jon?” Sonja asked. “He’s practically an Archives ghost. Even more than Martin.”

“More poltergeist than ghost,” Gilpin said thoughtfully. “His presence is felt, things move around, there’s weird sounds in the dark hours—“

“He was—“ Vihaan coughed “—saw him wander through. Before it all went sideways. Headed into the Archives, of course, but he came from outside. I was talking to Rosie when he passed through.”

“He _left_ the Institute?” Gilpin whistled low. “Seems out of character. I swear he was living here. You think he’s a fucked up monster now? Like that Sasha-thing?”

“Could be.”

“Huh. Hope Basira and Martin show up, otherwise we’ve got a truly abysmal record for retaining Archive staff.”

Vihaan’s laugh was mostly coughing and hysteria. Gilpin caught Sonja’s eye and mimed drinking out of a cup, tilting their head towards Vihaan significantly. She nodded and picked up the sword again, gritting her teeth as she walked toward the breakroom.

Basira staggered through the shattered front doors of the Magnus Institute, gun held low. Her sharp eyes skimmed the room. “Everyone here?”

“Sonja went for water,” Gilpin said. “Chae-won’s doing a perimeter check. Rosie’s at A&E with Tom and Katie. Meaghan’s hunting through Peter and Martin’s files, trying to figure out what’s been going on. Nate and Diana worked from home today, lucky bastards. Jon’s—”

“Fuck him,” Basira grumbled.

Gilpin raised their eyebrows. “Sure, but we don’t know where he or Martin are. And…” They cleared their throat nervously. “Daisy…?”

“Dunno.” Basira sat down heavily, leaning back against the desk. Beside her, Gilpin leaned against the reception desk, getting off their injured leg. 

“What now?” Vihaan whispered after a long moment.

“Guess we tell the police,” Basira said.

“Fuck,” Gilpin said. “I hope this doesn’t mean fucking Elias takes control again. He’s in jail.”

“Oh,” Basira said. “…Maybe we can wait a bit on calling authorities.”

They sat in silence for a while longer. Sonja brought water bottles for everyone and set her screaming sword down again. They all drank and shared with Chae-won when she returned with a few frightened research students. And they shared with Admin when people filtered down. 

The Fundraising team had barricaded themselves in their offices and weren’t trusting anyone to coax them out, according to Meaghan. Basira went with Meaghan and the bookkeeper, Luis, to try and talk them into joining the impromptu staff party in reception. The students that emerged from their hiding places sprinted out the battered doors of the Institute without a backward glance, and no one tried to stop them or ask for contact information. 

In the ruined, echoey foyer of the Institute, employees sat around and spoke quietly about what they had seen and heard. It had been a long time since a staff meeting. Most people hadn’t realized Hannah had quit the Library, or that reception had been using temps for a while while Rosie dealt with her sister’s health, or that Tom had gone through some truly spectacular broken engagements recently. 

Basira led the trail of people from Admin and Fundraising. Meaghan had an arm around Olivia and they both were weeping. Basira held her gun down by her side, arms stiff and still ready to fire.

“What’s going on?” Sonja called after her, when it became clear she wasn’t stopping her stride out of the Institute. “What’s going on in Archives that caused all this?”

“Fear entities,” Basira said. “Elias. Peter Lukas. Jon, though, to be fair, he's... trying. I gotta go.”

“Hey,” Gilpin called. She turned to glare back at them, but they raised their hands in surrender and said, “Could you explain it, later?”

She cocked her head, then said, “Yeah, I’ll do my best. Later.”

* * *

Later was more than a week and a few rounds of questioning by the police. Peter Lukas had vanished (if he’d ever existed at all), as had Elias (from prison) and Jon and Daisy and Martin. Basira wandered through and spouted a bunch of nonsense about fears and avatars and eldritch horrors making pacts with humans. Then she shoved a wodge of statements in the post and vanished again.

“Did you hear that Sims and Martin ran off together?” Tom said in the bleach-scented breakroom.

Gilpin stirred their tea thoughtfully. “ _Together_ together? ...I can see that.”

“Remember when he started?” Rosie said. “Jon, I mean.” She was a bit woozy and got around in a wheelchair now, after what the folks from the Hunt had done to her equilibrium, but she was helping clean up the absolute wreck that Peter Lukas had left of the Institute’s donor records. Currently, she was getting tea made for her by Meaghan, whose neatly lipstick’d mouth was tight and furious. 

Meaghan said, “I remember his massive arseholery.”

“Of course,” Gilpin said, smiling into their first sip of Irish Breakfast. “That’s our Jon.”

“Resisted even Tim’s charms,” Rosie said. There was a note of sadness in her voice.

“Martin was the irresistible one, if you ask me,” Gilpin said.

Tom snorted. “That guy? Bit overeager. And not exactly, you know. Fit.”

“Friendly,” Gilpin said, tone sharpening. “Thoughtful. Great ass. Excellent hugger. ”

“He did a good job on the memos,” Meaghan said. “We never would have gotten half the information we needed about scheduling if he wasn’t Lukas’ assistant.”

“He _is_ good, isn't’t he?” Rosie said. “Jon's been an absolute wreck the whole time as Archivist, but Martin? Steady as a rock when he was basically running the Institute.”

“Jon’s had a rough few years,” Gilpin said. “I don’t know that I’d call him a wreck the _whole_ time.”

“He’s run off with one of his former assistants,” Meaghan said. “This is a, a sex scandal now.”

“Never expected it of him, honestly,” Tom said. “He never showed interest, you know?”

“In _you_?” Gilpin said. Their shock was exaggerated just enough that Tom eyed them suspiciously in case they were taking the piss. They said, “No accounting for taste,” sipped their tea, and smiled.

“It’s good he’s got Martin,” Rosie said. “Jon needs looking after. Remember when he came back with all those scars and plasters and bandages? Or after his kidnapping? And Martin needs someone who sees what a good man he is.”

“Does Jon see the good in _anyone_?” Meaghan said. She fished in Rosie’s mug for the teabag.

“Of course he does,” Rosie laughed.

“He just never says anything good,” Gilpin added. “Thinks it’s unprofessional. But you should have seen him with Melanie when she was going through her physio treatment, or Daisy. Those women scared the shit out of him for months and then he goes around, gives reminders, stays out of their way or checks in, all that. He pays attention. Melanie hated it. Daisy looked… god, it reminded me of my sisters and me. Tolerant.”

Meaghan’s mouth twisted faintly. She passed Rosie her mug. “I’ve got to tidy up a few more desks.” Her heels clicked on the stained tiles as she left.

“Holding a grudge?” Gilpin suggested when the sound of her shoes had faded.

“Jon was a prickly arsehole when you didn’t see him in person,” Rosie said. “She wasn’t a fan.”

“He was better in person?” Tom said.

“Cuter, certainly,” Gilpin said. Rosie smacked them on the arm and they yelped as tea splashed. “Rosie!”

“He’s taken now,” Rosie said primly, her grin wicked. “Show some respect for Martin.”

“Martin's more my type than Jon. And I can acknowledge a man is cute without wanting him for myself. It’s how I got through uni.”

“They’re insufferable,” Basira commented as she passed the breakroom. “I saw them for ten minutes before they left London and they held hands the whole time. It was ridiculous.”

Rosie sighed happily. “Love finds a way.”

* * *

Later still, after Admin had sent out a call for a Head of the Institute as well as an Archivist with actual archiving experience and Library Science credentials, the world began to warp. it was sudden and relentless. It felt like a separation of space, time, place, and perception. It was a nightmare unending.

The sky changed—that was obvious. Eyes everywhere, and sharp ones. Pointed glances. No one seemed to know what to do, except keep to a routine. Commuting was tense. No route seemed to go the way expected. Gilpin vanished one day, a wrong turn that led to a place of silence and turned backs and indifference. They walked with their head up and their armor on their heart, and kept searching the crowds of hostile rejection for a friend, a lover, someone who looked even a bit like them. They looked in vain.

Meaghan couldn’t take the eyes. She stopped leaving her apartment, barred the door, threw out her phone because it wouldn’t stop telling her what it thought she wanted. She piled blankets on her head but could still feel the attention.

Other things were going wrong in London. Olivia got in the lift to the Tube station. She didn’t want to get in, but the press of people on the stairs was too much to navigate. She joined a pack of nervous people in the lift. The box descended, kept going. The sides warped as it rattled its way down and down and down and down and down…

As he prepared his pre-commute coffee, Tom swatted at a few flies that wouldn’t leave him alone, then caught the sound of some strange music. There was a promise in there. He followed the humming. He didn’t return.

Katie lost all sense of time as she stumbled her way through a hacked Facebook account, a stolen Instagram, a deleted LinkedIn. Whoever was taking her online life apart was thorough. They were burning down her old relationships, her image of happy and content in her life. There were secrets spilled there, comments on friends’ posts that incited rage and unfriending and blocking. She struggled to reach out and fix things but couldn’t. Everything she tried to grasp turned to ash on the screen.

The ground wasn’t to be trusted. Rosie could feel the swoop of a drop at any moment. She was poised on a precipice, even when she was sitting firmly in her wheelchair. She couldn’t close her eyes (that made it worse). She couldn’t look up (the eyes… and the angle of her inner ear made it worse). Always, she had a sense of nearly falling. She gripped the wheels of her chair tightly and tried to forget the slow roll of the ground beneath her.

There were places that Luis couldn’t fit anymore. It wasn’t that he was particularly large—Martin had been bigger, what little Luis had seen of him before Martin insisted their conversations go virtual when they reviewed the month’s accounts. It was just that all the doorways were subtly shaped so he had to squeeze through sideways. Rooms echoed when he was in them. Benches felt a little short. Steps felt too high, then they felt too low, so Luis stumbled. He felt clumsy, but in no way that was consistent. It felt more like the world wouldn’t accommodate him in particular. He couldn't figure out how his body fit into it. When it began to change to suit the space, he didn't know whether to feel relief or terror.

The strangeness of the world crept without warning into personal lives. Vihaan took some time off work because, to his amazement, he had his son back. The man was younger than he should be, though. He’d called a few times in the years since he moved to do Peace Corps work in Cameroon, his voice down the line sounding less and less familiar, but this man… this boy looked like Aarush, but Aarush on the the day he’d left. A little scruff along his jaw and that was all the change. Vihaan was afraid to be right in his suspicions more than he was afraid to be wrong.

Ellie was gone. Chae-won went looking for her. A syrupy-sweet woman with hair that curled improbably was so sympathetic when she said she'd lost her wife. Holding back tears, Chae-won followed her through a door she hadn’t seen before.

Nate found his hands would only make fists. Stella looked like a target and, when he looked in the mirror, he saw the bared teeth of his parents grinning back, tongues poking at the bloody holes in their smiles. Nate pressed his forehead to the glass to make sure he wouldn’t hurt anyone but himself as he struck.

In his apartment, Yonnick lay on the couch—far too many people died in bed—and breathed carefully through the fear. Felt his breath moving in and out. Felt his heartbeat. Had to pay attention, because it could stop at any moment.

Diana gasped her way through the stacks. She was running from the sound of footsteps. There was no other breathing to be heard, just the pounding of feet and the clatter of books knocked from their places. Diana crouched behind a book cart and trembled, the library's hush amplifying every sound she made.

He’d retired, but Jason still found himself selecting his daily wardrobe carefully. He didn't want to dress up, but assumed it was habit that dressed him in neat suits and ties. He had nowhere to be, but he walked. He traveled paths he didn’t need to tread, routes he hadn’t used in years. He didn’t need to return to the Institute. Sometimes he could stop himself from walking by. Sometimes he could keep himself home. Usually, he couldn’t drag himself away from the sidewalk where he’d stand, silently looking at what the building had become. He couldn’t look away. He didn’t want to go back… did he?

The dark of Artifact Storage had an almost liquid quality. Sonja wasn’t surprised when it followed her home. The darkness itself was surprised when she pulled out a lightsaber keychain that sizzled it up like a hot poker frying lace. She smiled grimly and kept the keychain close at hand. Stealing from Storage was proving useful.

And the Watcher, newly woken, drank it all in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is done! I think it would be a better fic if Hic and I could talk it out but alas, she is still not caught up and I don't like to spoil. There's so much I'd go back and fix... But this was an attempt to write scenes of the mundane smashing up against the strange, and I did it without the benefit of beta-chats. I'm content with what this is. It's what I liked to think about. I miss offices and academia and the tenuousness (and sometimes cattiness) of coworker relationships forged in the break room over waiting for the microwave or for coffee. COVID's rough. TMA has helped.


End file.
